Scissored Kismets
by Schizoid Sprite
Summary: UPDATED. They made no progress, not even reaching a place where a ‘friendship’ signpost was erected. But thanks to that little sexual jape she carelessly broadcasted at Barton’s expense yesterday, Dorothy has to take a shortcut to reach the dating stage.
1. Prologue: Paper Cut

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**Disclaimer:** Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

**A/N:** The prologue takes place at the end of the series, with Quatre in the hospital (as shown in Operation Meteor: Odd and Even numbers).

* * *

"**Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**Prologue:** Papercut

* * *

"_Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."-_ Mark Twain

* * *

She wouldn't cry. She swore to herself that she wouldn't be weak.

It had been her mantra from the day she narrowly escaped the fall of Libra; she heavily relied to it as though it were a second backbone, something that she could use as a crutch while groping her way back to a normal life. She nodded in approval when she succeeded in her first steps.

She expected stumbling, and when she did—in front of him—she couldn't quite measure how disgusted she was to herself.

They were alone. The soft groaning of the air conditioner swam along with the microgravity of the room. An unpleasant churning of mixed coldness and warmth could be instantly felt, though in herself she knew that the first was the only one physically manifested. The warmth part was unmistakably emanating from him—from his pulsing proximity as she paced hesitantly towards him, traveling through a mental channel towards her.

An inner earthquake had made her whole body tremble; she reached up to touch the epicenter on her chest but she was suddenly too terrified to know—or to wonder why —there was fear in her.

Her hands had balled up into tiny fists when a tear squeezed itself out of one of her eyes. She suddenly remembered why she was there, why_ he_ was there. The heat of the fluid was strangely comforting and at the same time stinging, but she liked their feel on her face for a reason she wouldn't like to understand at the moment.

He was asleep. He looked exhausted and drained, though a hint of lingering serenity somewhat overlapped that; he was an avenging angel who had finally found a chance to rest after a long hopeless battle. His tousled hair was his dissolved halo that dripped onto his sweat-beaded brow and eyelids. He appeared like he was having a dream, a pleasant one, because his lips were quivering with a ghost of a smile. One of his pale arms was clutching a lump of cloud—an extra pillow—and the other one was draped over his torso, a hand unconsciously protecting his side.

She shuddered when the muscles under her skin moved in spasms. She let her lids droop down.

And she was back there again, the pink light of the control room penetrating through her spacesuit, her skin, her muscles and bones and blood, fueling her up to underscore the reason why she chose Libra to be her personal battleground…

…and her personal gravesite.

She heard the thunderous clash of metals against metals with unbelievable clarity and by each crashing sound, she was convulsing with inner laughter, enjoying how the symphony of man's greatest nature complementing the dance of her Dolls. She could consider herself a mental case; she was grasping a lot of reasons to mourn about, yet her heart was beating with unexplainable euphoria...

Suddenly, there was a slicing force that pulverized all her defenses into a heap of stinking garbage. She was stripped naked: all her memories came tumbling over one another, ripping and torturing and killing her till she didn't know when or where or how or why—until she saw someone else's eyes. They changed color from a calm sea-foam green to a blazing electric blue as they fed on all her deepest secrets, her weaknesses that even her grandfather wasn't aware of, her simple wishes, her longing for a true home, a family…

The payment came soon. Her eyes cleaved through space and time, and she was brought back to the past of another person. The visions were shadowy but they showed enough details to be understood. She scowled at the sudden burning sensation of guilt, the ache to make up for the shortcomings and transgressions, the altitude of extraordinary intelligence, the disgusting care for others, love…

She was not childish to admit defeat, but right during that stage she couldn't afford to lose. Tugging the Zero helmet off her head, she let the heat of rage kick in and gush through her veins while silently screaming to deny the a flash of future defeat that crossed her eyes.

The scheme she built in her head could work twofold. With a flaming desire to finish off the only person who dissected her and learned who the real her was, she faced Quatre Raberba Winner in a duel of swords and words. Avenge for the violation of her privacy—intended or not—was one part of the plan. Once she'd taken it, she could subtly provoke him to retaliate. That was the other part, to achieve her main goal that she desperately wanted all this time: her own death.

She wouldn't let other hands do that for her other than that of Quatre Raberba Winner.

It was all in vain, though. In the end she still emerged as the loser. Not only she wasn't able to exact revenge, the brat also made her cry after all these tearless years succeeding her father's death. The second failure? She was alive, apparently, and he was still punishing her by adding more guilt—and something else that she preferred nameless—to burden her heart. It angered her more than anything.

A grunting noise brought her back to the present. She snapped her eyes open and found a stirring Quatre before her. Her first instinct was to run, but when he didn't wake, she calmed herself and sighed with relief.

Brushing the tears away with the back of her hand, she bent and instinctively slid the other hand to the sleeping boy's cheek. She gently thumbed a yellowing bruise there and breathed a shaky apology. It didn't sound sincere to her own ears, but that was all that she could manage at the moment.

More tears had come. Since she couldn't afford to let him see her like that, she spun on her heel and hastened out of the room.

* * *

He was awake.

His eyes were focused on an unseen blemish on the white ceiling while he tried to keep the warmth left on his cheek by caressing it with his own hand.

"I'm taking it back," declared a voice from the doorway. Quatre didn't need to turn his head there to know who it was.

"What are you taking back, Trowa?"

The taller man loomed into his line of sight. He caught the smiling green eyes of the other pilot and decided that for the first time, he didn't like it.

"What I said back on Libra," he answered with a twitch of an eyebrow. "She knew exactly how to cry."

Quatre closed his eyes, leaning in against his hand. "I know."

"You're a heartbreaker."

He snapped his eyes open. "Pardon?"

"You heard."

"Why am I a heartbreaker?"

"If I'm correct, it was you who made her cry."

"Yeah I think so…but I didn't break her heart."

"How can you be sure?"

"I don't know. I'm just sure."

He turned away from his smirking friend and snuggled into his pillow, gently sliding his hand away from his face. He smothered a whimper when a shock of pain from his wound made him shiver.

"Why didn't you talk to her when she was here? I know you're wide awake."

He sighed. "She wouldn't like it if I would see her crying. I've seen her cry way too many times when I shouldn't."

"Really?" there was an exaggerated amusement in Trowa's voice. That was a first, and though it made Quatre's eyes widen with his own version of entertainment, he couldn't bring himself to be totally happy about it especially that it was all because of him. "Tell me, then. How long have you known each other?"

"I don't know," was his truthful reply. "It seems like I know her long before I came to know myself."

Quatre didn't see the shrug Trowa gave him after that cryptic answer. "You like her."

"Yes." When he realized what he'd replied offhandedly, he bolted up to a sitting position and waved his hands in denial. "I mean, I—"

"Just what I expect from an honest man."

Quatre readied a retort, but Trowa gently pushed him to the bed and enveloped him with the blanket.

"Have some rest. You're not fully recovered yet from the gift she gave you."

He made a face but gratefully obeyed. The wound was still throbbing. "Thank you, Trowa."

He expected Trowa to leave or at least take a seat but neither was done. Quatre began to feel awkward when the man kept on staring at him.

"What?" he demanded, pulling the blanket higher up to his chin.

"Nothing," Trowa shook his head at first. "It's just…you act as if there's really nothing to forgive."

There was an unspoken question there.

"You know the answer to that." Quatre offered a bright smile, and when it didn't do the trick, he finally spoke: "It's because she has done nothing that needs to be apologized."

tbc


	2. Chapter 1:Bullet with Butterfly Wings

**Disclaimer: **Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

* * *

"**Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**Chapter 1: **Bullet with Butterfly Wings

* * *

_"Stolen kisses are the sweetest."- _anonymous.

* * *

"So how are you doing now, Heero?"

The Japanese frowned when the fingers he raked through his hair came out moist because of sweat. He adored the Earth, but the longer he stayed there, the more he seemed to dislike its weather. While he preferred to wake up to natural sunlight than under the cool but bogus lights of the colonies, he certainly wouldn't like it to fry his skin whenever he goes out. There was something wrong about the rain, too, especially when it comes minutes after the oven temperature of the surroundings reaches its peak. He had a feeling that the odd weather change would repeat today.

But he wouldn't—_couldn't_—protest. This wouldn't be a bad day after all, he thought, secretly glancing at the girl sitting next to him.

"I'm studying," he said dryly, settling his Physics book and organizer on his lap.

Relena stopped prodding the sushi with the chopsticks she grasped with both her fists. She raised a brow when he took one hand and positioned one chopstick properly. "Don't let it touch your forefinger." He slipped the other between her thumb and forefinger.

"Studying," she muttered, her brows gathering in the center as Heero lined the pieces of wood parallel to each other.

"Yes," he muttered back, his eyes flitting to hers for a second. "I should finish my education now. I only used the school as a cover-up during the war and those are the times when education was the last thing on my mind." He thumbed the back of her hand near her own thumb. "Keep this one stationary as you move the other towards it."

Relena followed the instructions and grinned when he gave a nod at her movements. "It's a good thing to know that you chose to continue your studies. I'm happy you decided to live a normal life."

"That's the sole road waiting ahead of me." He detached his fingers from her. "Now try to pick the food using that technique."

Relena beamed warmly as she trapped the soft thing between the sticks. "This is the first time I'm going to have sushi."

"No, this is not."

The sushi slipped off her shaky hold. She didn't take his eyes away from it. "What do you mean?"

"They're not real sushi."

"Huh?"

Relena leaned forward to study the little things. They look real. She'd seen sushi and a lot of other Japanese dishes before so she could recognize a few by just looking at them. She hadn't tasted one, though; she doesn't care so much for Asian cuisine. She thought about making an exemption today.

A familiarly sweet scent made her nostrils flare when she leaned a bit nearer.

"Chocolate," she gasped.

Relena's face brightened with a child's delight when Heero nodded in confirmation. She hummed happily as she set the chopsticks aside and fiddled a slightly deformed chocolate sushi with her fingers. She managed to scoop it up from the tray.

"Don't worry," she said with a sideways glance, "I won't forget your chopsticks lesson. It's just I never eat confectioneries with wooden sticks."

Heero smirked, content at watching her help herself with the sweets, her pink tongue darting out to sweep over her lower lip. He reached to get one for himself, but Relena playfully slapped his hand away.

"No," she said with a squinting of the eyes, shifting the tray from her lap to the other side of the bench.

Heero prevented himself from rolling his eyes. "Hn."

She held his eyes, attempting to mimic Heero's overly serious expression. She was victorious for a couple of minutes until her shoulders shook with hidden laugher. She spilled them out and reached up to muffle her giggles.

Heero merely raised a brow. "What's funny?"

She shook her head hard that some of her hair flapped against her cheeks. The brunette just stared vacantly and waited for her to stop laughing. When she did, she coyly tucked the stray strands to the back of her ears. She picked up one almost formless thing and raised it towards Heero. He reached forward to get it, but Relena shoved his hand away.

"No," she protested, an unreadable glint shimmering in her eyes. When she inched it nearer, Heero got what she wanted to do. He lowered his head and opened his mouth to take a small bite.

Relena grinned complacently and popped the remaining part into her mouth. "Hmm. This is good."

Heero ran his hand on the embossed title of his book as he swallowed. "The owner of the apartment where I'm staying seems to be fond of me. She gave me those before I went to school this morning. She owns a sweetshop just a few blocks away from here."

She started. "A few blocks…You live here on Earth?"

"For the time being," he answered stiffly. "Anytime after my graduation I'll be heading back to the colonies. Quatre promised to have a job for me there."

"Quatre?"

"Yes."

"I've just run away with him."

The Japanese seemed to look startled for a moment. He wasn't given the chance to utter anything when Relena spoke again.

"I guess that no matter what we do, we're still teenagers. We needed a break." Heero's gaze followed where Relena was pointing at. Just behind the bench where they were sitting, two small bicycles were laid recklessly on the grassy ground. He couldn't figure out whose was which, for both bikes were pink and girly.

"We sneaked out of our offices today," she explained, her attention now back to the precious things in the tray. "There weren't so much anything to do today, really. Pagan showed me my schedule and I almost called for a toast when I saw that my night would be miraculously clear. Quatre was invited to a luncheon at Switzerland yesterday, and he decided to work from here before the month ends. He called me up last night. We were supposed to be having lunch together for some sort of catching up, outside our workplace, but we figure we couldn't get out into the public without being noticed or stalked by the press. Hence the disguise."

Heero's lips twitched. He wasn't paying attention to what Relena was wearing when he found her. Now that he studied her soiled cleats and yellow-striped-white ankle socks, her bright pink jodhpurs, her high school P.E. shirt and a checkered newsboy cap, he couldn't help but let a wide smile take control of his aching jaw.

Relena chuckled at his reaction. "Well, we're not able to have lunch. He abandoned his bike here when he said he'd pass by a bookstore to buy something. He'll be back anytime soon and we can eat together."

"Small reunion."

"It hasn't been that long," Relena said with a chuckle. "And by the way, Toffee says hi."

Heero threw her a questioning look. "Toffee?"

She cocked a nod. "Don't you remember him?"

"I'm afraid not."

"He'll be sad if he finds that out."

Silence.

"He said you should've given him to me in person on my sixteenth birthday than disguising yourself as a flight attendant and leaving him on my seat before we took off."

When he finally took in what she said, not letting his laugh escape his mouth was the hardest thing to do.

Of course he does remember.

* * *

"I've watched the interview on _The Paragon _this morning," Forrest Madison, secretary and in charge of the public relations for the Romafeller Enterprises, popped into the vidscreen, sporting a smug grin on his face. "I'm getting positive feedbacks."

Tossing a thick band of her blond locks away from her face, Dorothy Catalonia didn't even look up from the papers on her table. She tapped the blunt end of her ballpoint pen against the tip of the manila envelope where the papers were lying on, a frown marring her immaculate countenance.

"Good," she responded tersely.

"_The Business Aperture_ will have you on the cover on its next month's issue," he added, one corner of his mouth curling up higher than the other. "_The Lagrangian Athena_ and _Women_ will have you on theirs' next week."

"That's fine," she answered with so little interest, but this time looking up to face him. "Are there new messages?"

"Yes, new events," Madison replied with a sideways wobble of his head. He disappeared from the screen for a few seconds and showed up again, a planner spread on his hands.

"The Yellow Brick Road Children Organization wants you to be in their twenty-fourth anniversary as the guest of honor," he read, perching spectacles on his nose. "That's on the fifteenth."

"I don't think I can make it. Send them a check."

Madison nodded, scribbling notes. "You're invited at a dinner party for a women's group next Tuesday."

"No. Send them a check if they're asking for money."

"The Local Government department will be having a luncheon on the thirtieth and they would like you to be their guest speaker."

"No. Send my apologies. I think I'm going to visit our complex and proving grounds on that date."

The secretary nodded. "Your meeting in Geneva has been arranged—"

"Cancel it."

"The Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian will be hosting a masquerade party on Friday next week."

Dorothy considered. "I'll try to come."

Before Madison could add another word, Dorothy's cell phone rang. She looked up from the papers and snatched the phone she was currently using as a paperweight. Madison watched as his boss's eyes narrowed at the name on her phone's screen. Dorothy pushed the answer key and brought the thing to her ear, saying nothing. He tried to figure out who she was talking to by reading her expression, but he couldn't read anything there. Half a minute passed and the call was ended without her saying anything.

Dorothy smiled. "So, Madison. I've just been informed that you've been interviewed by _The Sentinel_."

Madison returned the friendly gesture, but he couldn't help but shiver. When his boss was giving that smile to anyone, there was a disaster coming. "Yes, ma'am. The Editor of the paper said that they'll have it on the front page."

"I've heard that too. Wouldn't that be nice?" Dorothy nonchalantly answered, tossing her hair back on her shoulder. Her smile widened when she saw him sigh in relief, then she continued. "The world will now know the problems we're having about our junk bonds."

Madison's brow creased. "I informed them a little about our leveraging, but the whole article is mainly about the transition of the Romafeller Foundation from a military financial backer to an independent business entity in a very short span of time."

"That's good."

Madison felt a millisecond-long safety.

"You're fired."

"What?"

"You heard me right, Madison. When I hired you as my secretary and appointed you as the public relations officer, you signed a contract about not informing anyone about what's truly going on inside our business, especially not about our problems."

"That's—"

"I'm very sorry," Dorothy said in a tone that says she truly wasn't. "I wish you could find a better job."

"But miss Catalonia—"

With a push of a long finger, the connection was cut and Dorothy was left staring at her own reflection on the blank vidscreen.

It was a terribly good day, not an ideal time to fire someone, but she was more concerned for the well-being of the company than the welfare of already affluent people.

She couldn't afford to make a mistake.

A thought flashed across her head. She debated with herself, considered if it wouldn't do any harm or if it was a _mistake _before she dialed up her butler.

"Morley, please prepare my car."

No, it wasn't—_taking a break_ wasn't a mistake. Even the youngest woman in the world to preside over a budding business organization needed a break.

She was still a human, after all.

* * *

Quatre sheepishly pushed his head deeper into the hood of his jacket while pretending to examine the magazine rack. He'd seen a lot of commerce magazines that had him on the cover this month, and it made him blush when he noticed that the main buyers in the bookstore he entered looked as if anything connected to business was the last thing on their minds.

Girls. Giggly, scatty, flushed teenage schoolgirls.

He would have turned his music player on full blast just to drown what these flighty kids were gossiping about but for some reason, he decided to nose round. He might get something…..

…..or not.

"He's _so_ cute," gushed one, hugging a magazine to her chest. "I wonder why he didn't enter the show business... Or modeling? I bet he'll be doing well there. Em, what do you say?"

"Yes!" chimed the shorter girl called Em, holding another copy of the same mag. "Have you watched his interview yesterday at the _Ryman Show_? Boy, he's such a heartthrob. Actually, I wasn't able to take anything in as I was so busy watching him."

"Yeah, I've seen that, and at least I was able to jot down something. I learned that he's the only male heir of that vast Winner Corporation. He's got twenty-nine sisters."

"Twenty-nine!"

"Yes. That would be a bit scary, wouldn't it? I mean, can you handle twenty-nine _sisters-in-law_?"

Quatre stifled a sigh. He didn't know if he should laugh or get irritated.

"He's a good businessman, I heard," called a taller girl from behind the two. "It's been observed that he's doing a fine job filling his late father's shoes just by himself. His sisters rarely come to help him."

"Sheesh, Annie, I thought you don't care about this cutie."

There was a huff. "I don't. If we're talking about how he looks like a movie star."

"Oh, but he does! How could you ignore that?"

"I'm not ignoring that, I'm just focusing on the right things. And please don't crumple that, we haven't paid for it yet."

"B-but he's just so _cute_! How could that be _not_ one of…the right things you were talking about?"

"It's a commerce periodical, not a teen mag. I think that alone explains what I want to say."

"Hmph."

"I'm not completely enamored by his 'power', though. There's another incredible teen that's able to catch my attention." The taller girl snatched up a periodical from the rack and shoved it to the younger girls.

"That Catalonia?"

Quatre flinched at the mention of the name.

"Oh," Em sighed. "Nice hair."

He could feel the older girl called Annie rolling her eyes. "You're just kids, aren't you? You're looking at the wrong things."

"Just what's so special about her? Well, aside from that hair and…Hey, what's happened to her eyebrows?"

"_You're looking at the wrong things_."

"Just spit it out."  
"Yeah."

"She's Quatre Winner's counterpart."

"What?"  
"Because they're both blondes? I love their hair."

"I don't know what's wrong with you two. You're acting as if you're still in elementary!"

"Fine. Just tell us what you're thinking."

Annie sighed, hesitated if she should explain further, then relented. "Quatre Winner is the Iron Phoenix, as his competitors called him. After his father died and the corporation almost lost its way because of the lack of a true leader, he came back and put his company back to where it once was…and probably to where it hasn't been in yet.

"Dorothy Catalonia. She's a Bullet with Butterfly Wings, a title given to her by the majority of the people whom she crossed paths with. She's definitely beautiful but fatal. They said she'll eat you alive; she can make her employees cry blood if she wanted to. I don't know if that's true, but hey, being the perfectionist that she is I think it's not impossible. But if I'd be asked, I'd say she's a true phoenix too. The Romafeller Foundation was once a financial backer of a military organization. You know what happened in the war. She's the last heiress to the foundation, and she didn't disappoint her late kin when she relived it, only now as an independent business unit."

"Hmm."

"Hey, Annie," Em called, happily tugging at her elbow, "Is she and Quatre the same age?"

There was a pause. "Yeah. I think they're turning sixteen this year."

"Is it possible that they're twins? He has so many sisters and…their hair..."

"Stupid. Leave their hair alone. They…."

Quatre didn't listen to the rest. Music flowed into his ears from the earphones, and oddly a chill formed in the pit of his belly and kept edging out, cooling him off inch by inch until he's trembling. He tried to ignore the sudden beating of a scar on his side and the almost painful hammering of his heart against his ribs. His eyes instinctively fell to a glossy magazine where the main cause of his abnormal body response was pictured.

He picked the magazine up, studying her calm face.

When he put it back to the rack, he couldn't understand why he was blushing again.

* * *

A golden Porsche skidded to a stop at the parking lot. Passersby and some of the customers entering the bookstore turned their heads to the unbelievably showy color of the car. It was a bit painful to look at especially that the bright afternoon light hit it, making it appear like it has an unearthly halo. When people would look away shaking their heads, they couldn't help but turn again when a golden creature emerged from it—brighter than the car, but very pleasant to the eye.

Dorothy Catalonia marched up the steps with a dignified aura, her hair swaying in time with her strides. She was aware that she was being watched, but she walked as if she was alone, as if anyone else was invisible or just unworthy of her attention.

She pushed the glass door open. It has been a long time since she bought a book for herself—the last time was probably even before she joined the war. She made it a point to read a new novel every week or at least twice a month, and because of her tight schedule she couldn't get herself anything but stupid books about the industry, journals about the current economic state of the colonies, and a lot of other materials discussing politics that come her way. She wouldn't say she was sick of these things as she knew she would be living with them for the longest part of her life, but she wanted something lighter, something that would take her away for a while from her tension-filled world. The first step in doing that was to get the book herself, not from the internet but from the real store. She would even like to have a secondhand one from the bargain pyramid just for the sake of feeling that she was reading the same pages of a book that an ordinary person once held.

The first thing that caught her attention was the sharp giggling at the counter. She wouldn't have looked at the girls for more than a second when she noticed a familiar face in the magazine being waved happily by one of them.

"Yes, yes, yes," the girl excitedly chanted, placing a kiss on the cover. "I hope they include pin-ups."

"As if they would," spat a taller one. "For god's sake, it's a business mag, how many times should I tell you?"

Dorothy smirked as the banter went on, turning the other way towards the book shelves. She examined the tomes, checked out the latest volumes. She'd already run her eyes over a couple of paperback summaries but she wasn't able to understand any of them. There was something on her mind that wouldn't let anything else enter.

Quatre Raberba Winner.

Just saying his name mentally brings a coldness kicking back into her guts. Their last encounter took place couples of months ago, after the Libra incident, in that cold hospital room. He hadn't been awake but she knew he was well and alive. And the connection….

"Dorothy? Miss Dorothy, is that you?"

Her ears stung at the painfully familiar voice. She snapped her head towards where it came from and was greeted by the sight of a boy blocking the aisle. Donned in a blue hooded windbreaker, faded jeans, and worn-out Chucks, a dead ringer of the blonde she was thinking about half a second ago was regarding her with bright eyes.

Or was it really him?

The boy approached her with careful steps, his soles squeaking against the tiles. There was a weak force urging her to run away, but her legs suddenly felt very heavy. He came to a halt an arm span away from her, a lopsided grin tugging at his lips.

"Dorothy," he breathed.

"Quatre," she whispered.

No, it wasn't him. It's just…

A hallucination. Right. Never would anyone see the president of the Winner Corporation dressed up like he was an average punk frequenting the sidewalks. And why would anyone wear jacket on a hot, sunny afternoon?

She smirked evilly, then stepped forward to take a close, good look at the illusion. She knew the effects of too much stress.

And when a tingling, urging force puddled into her system, she didn't attempt to deny what it wanted to do. She relented to it by her own will, and then she was doing it.

Slowly, she lifted her hands and slid them inside his hood, on either side of his face. His eyes widened when her cold fingers touched his cheeks, but he didn't jerk them away. There was heat, something that made her wonder if she was overworking herself. She was indeed too tired to even deceive herself that such hallucinations would be perceptible.

Nevertheless, she still did it. She momentarily forgot where she was, or what the other people present in the bookstore would think. She leaned in, pulled him closer, and fused her lips to his.

The hood dropped to his shoulders. She lost herself in the kiss for the first few moments, and then she felt the intake of breath of the hallucination, the light rising and falling of his shoulders. A breathing imagination? Could it be possible? And was he just too warm, too soft, too _Quatre_ to be just…… Oh.

Oh no.

As if he was suddenly caustic, she yanked her hands away from him and stepped back thrice, shock all over her face. His cheeks were glowing scarlet and there was surprise churning in the depths of his eyes.

They were held prisoner in each others eyes, until Dorothy broke out and spun on her heel, bolting towards the glass door and out of the store.

He stood stock-still, staring at the tiles where she was standing just a few moments ago, his hand mindlessly rising up to touch his lips.

* * *


	3. Chapter 2:Lemonade Confessions

**Disclaimer: **Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

* * *

"**Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**CHAPTER 2:** Lemonade Confessions

* * *

"EMOTION _n._ A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes."

- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_

* * *

Absently scribbling little hearts on his pillow with shaky fingertips, Quatre waited for someone to answer on the other line. At the third ring, he rolled onto his back, swallowing the bile that sluiced up his throat.

A glance at his alarm clock told him it was still early for bed: eight-thirty. It was a long journey from the green planet back here on L4 and the very second his feet touched the floor of the spaceport, all he wanted to do was plunge on a mattress and sleep forever. Here he was on a bed now, but the problem was that he couldn't sleep. He had his phone against his ear, clearing his throat almost every minute to make sure his voice still sounds normal. He silently cursed himself for not considering that this call would steal some minutes from the vice foreign minister's sleeping hours. On Earth, it's already three forty-five in the morning. But he just couldn't help it—he felt the need to do this.

_A necessity?_ He pulled his eyebrows together at the thought.

He decided so suddenly that he would try to stop this growing _habit _sometime this week. No, not this week…maybe next week…or next month…or maybe next…

"Hello.." a sluggish voice broke the monotonous rings on the other line.

"I'm sorry Miss Relena, I didn't mean to wake you—"

"Dorothy's fine," Relena slurred, the two words punctuated by a long yawn. "I just phoned her this afternoon. It's been a week since I last saw her personally…I think she's having a good time. She's planning to have a vacation this week."

The girl let out another yawn to the phone and a thought crawled into Quatre's head to say it was intended, an emphasis that he was diminishing the already scant hours of rest of one of the most important people on Earth. He felt his cheeks burn.

"I'm so sorry," he automatically apologized. After those words left his lips, he found himself tongue-tied and his face grew hotter.

"Nahitchsokay," Relena mumbled almost unintelligibly. "I just have to cut your stalling stage short…know you'll ask about Dorothy…Er, I wonder why you don't just phone her yourself?"

The silence that followed was awkward, and Relena felt the need to change the topic.

"What happened to you yesterday? You told me you'll come back. It took me almost an hour to convince Heero to use your bike..."

"Heero? You're with Heero?" Quatre rolled back to his belly, staring diffidently at the hollow his head left on the pillow. "I'm very sorry."

"Quatre, there are millions of other words in the dictionary than just I, am, and sorry," came Relena's slightly demeaning reply. A discomfited pause succeeded, and her voice sounded again almost at the same time Quatre opened his mouth to politely say good-bye. "Anyway, we had a good time. So back to Dorothy..Hmmm. Not that I'm getting rid of your nightly…or morning calls, it's just you can't carry on like this forever. Besides, you're Quatre Raberba Winner—"

"And she's Dorothy Catalonia," Quatre finished bitterly, hidden meaning copiously squeezing beneath each letter of the said woman's name.

"Exactly," Relena firmly agreed, and shifting to a hesitant mode upon studying the silence of the boy, she added, "Well, she's single. And I think there's nothing she wouldn't like about you..."

The boy swallowed. He knew that there's no point in denying what Relena was obviously implying, but he just couldn't bring himself to admit it directly to anyone.

He clearly remembered the first time he started this shameful routine. Exactly on the day after he was released from the hospital, he called up Relena to inquire on Dorothy's whereabouts. He was informed then that the Dorothy had taken the responsibility over the Romefeller Foundation—now a business unit—as its only legatee. At that time, Relena got to see Dorothy more often because the Foundation decided to aid the programs of the vice foreign minister regarding the improvement of Earth-colonies co-existence.

Since the wound on his side was only semi-healed and because he simply didn't have the guts to face Dorothy just yet, he just decided to keep himself updated by asking the best friend of the woman in question. And he gets updated every other night.

That was almost six months ago. He wasn't surprise at all that Relena was trying to put an end to it today.

But _no,_ he wasn't ready to call up Dorothy yet, not after what happened that afternoon.

"…and it would get better after that. What do you think?"

Quatre flinched, realizing he had done it again. Lately, he was being overly absentminded and dreamy, Dorothy being the culprit of it all. A memory surged back at the thought: his last conversation with Duo, over the vid-phone.

_'You really are,' he blurted out suddenly, staring at Duo's leering face on the screen but seeing someone else._

_'What?' Duo had asked._

_'You really are. Kinder than me.'_

He tried to shake off Duo's uncontrollable guffaws in his head and resurfaced from the sea of his thoughts, trying to find a probable answer to the question he clearly didn't know what was all about.

"Yes, I agree with that," he replied, faking ease on his voice.

Another pause from the other line. "Really?"

Quatre chewed on his bottom lip upon realizing that the other's voice sounded seemingly wide awake all of a sudden. He didn't want to ask her to repeat what she had just said; it lasted for at most fifteen minutes, the timepiece on his side-drawer told him. He wasn't in shape for an untimely compromise either.

"No," he said.

"What?"

"I mean, I don't know," he blurted out with an unnecessary shrug.

"Come on, it's your chance to see her again."

Adrenaline charged down his veins at the sentence. "I…_what?_"

He heard a cross between a sigh and a yawn. "You're not listening, are you?"

He flinched. "Ah, no, I...." he cut his supposed lie with a defeated sigh. He knew he couldn't improvise a lie foolproof enough for Relena.

"Here you go again," Relena breathed tiredly. "Fine, then. I'm not going to reiterate what I've just said, but I'll give you a summary. Oh, If only you're attentive, you might have noticed my poor delaying tactics. I think you're rubbing off on me a little."

They exchanged short chuckles at the statement.

"So, uhm…the summary?" Quatre pushed.

"I'm setting you and Dorothy up on a date."

"Wha—"

"Tomorrow."

"Hey—"

"I'll see yah, Quatre."

She hung up. The blonde stared at the phone in disbelief, butterflies swarming to ram against the walls of his stomach.

* * *

"Once upon a time, a deity died."

Dorothy moseyed across the drawing room with a tray in one palm, her visage curled up in her trademark smirk. Two glasses of lemonade were precariously balanced on the tray and as she danced her way to her honey-blonde best friend, the drinks inched closer to the edge.

"And the reader lived happily ever after?" Relena, slumped on the couch, suggested with a disapproving look at the wobbling glasses.

"Not yet," Dorothy maliciously replied, sliding the tray on the top of the table. The vice foreign minister heaved a sigh of relief the moment the drinks were safe.

"That isn't a nice way to start a story," Relena scolded. She grabbed her lemonade and wiggled her eyebrows at the taller woman, pressing to hear more of the tale. She knew that when Dorothy's talks were going fairytale-wise, there was something interesting she was going to learn—something that, more often than not, would send her sleeplessly thinking after it was left hanging like a riddle. Oddly, she liked the puzzles.

"I believe we don't share the same definition of the word 'nice', Miss Relena," Dorothy cooed, smiling as she curved her lips over the glass. She took a small guzzle and continued. "A deity died. Mysteriously, she's still alive—her _body'_s still alive I mean, and she learned that it was only her inner self that passed away. Then she met another deity. She met the god of love."

Relena furrowed her brow. "God of love? Cupid, you mean?"

"Cupid it is." Dorothy smoothed her hair, a shimmer flaming up in the chill vacuum of her eyes. "The other one's androgynous—you can't call her a goddess, really, even if she looks entirely feminine. In her whole life including a few of the times after her soul died, it was her masculine side that was dominant—except for the time this story happened. So let's just call her a deity. A war deity."

"I think I've got an idea who that deity is…"

Dorothy ignored the sneer Relena gave her. "The war deity despised Cupid more than any god because he was weak and—"

"Love is not weak," Relena snapped, getting the implication easily.

"This is_ my_ mythology," Dorothy countered coldly. "And I didn't say it's 'love' that is 'weak', the stupid little cherub is. Besides, the main character is a war deity, not the goddess of hate. She loves wars and battles, keep that in mind."

"Please continue," Relena muttered, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

Absently prodding the little gems of moisture racing down the glass, Dorothy went on with her story. "Being a god of love, Cupid doesn't like wars. But he was forced to fight—to ward off the mortals' sorrow, according to him. In the battlefield, he turned out to be the war deity's biggest rival."

Relena tilted her head, amused. _Autobiographic mythology, huh? I wonder who Cupid is…_

"Cupid emerged as the loser."

"That's unfair!"

"Quit interrupting. You won't get the story right," Dorothy snarled.

"I hate your stories," Relena commented with a shrug. "But I love them all the same."

Dorothy gave her a smirk. Relena knew all too well that when Dorothy was in this kind of mood, the best thing to do was to humor her. Only a few people knew how fast Dorothy's mood change was. This conversation was mentally written, revised, and revised again before being stuffed up inside Dorothy's sleeve and spoken to a potential listener. Not everyone could understand what she was talking about so she chooses only a few people whom she thought could relate to her stories. That way, she could somehow be patient. Stupid people get on her nerves _very _easily.

"Very well, then. Where am I? Oh, yes…Cupid's bow and arrows was no match to the war deity's saber. So Cupid lost the duel. Physically, at least. If you look at it the right way, the war deity is the one who was totally ripped open and robbed of all her strength—she was the one defeated. It was a terrible downfall."

Dorothy stopped for a while, staring intently at her juice. The atmosphere seemed to change a little at the pause that it made Relena look up from her own drink. There was an intensely peculiar aura lingering around Dorothy that was not there earlier…

"Then…the war ended," Dorothy spoke just as the same time Relena was about to ask what's the matter. "The war deity doesn't have anywhere to go. She half-expected herself to fade away along with the embers of the last battle. But to her misery she did not. She lived, tried to move on, but she simply can't. The words Cupid told her were still ringing in her ears. The little god gave her the life she deserved—a life full of regrets, full of the beasts that chew her piece by piece every time she looks at the mirror, a life full of emotions she never wanted to feel….For the deity, it's worse than hell."

"Dorothy…" Relena uncomfortably shifted on her seat. Where did that sudden gloominess come from? She wanted to request Dorothy to stop the moment the latter's voice shook, but she knew it couldn't do anything. All of Dorothy's fairytales ends with a standard closing line--which was almost always a question--and once they've started, all you can do to stop them is to wait for them to end.

The storyteller permitted herself a deep sigh. "I don't know…Do you know what I want to do, Miss Relena? I want to murder that Cupid—I want to cut him and let him bleed to death, I lust to yank those wings out of his shoulders and knife his eyes out of their sockets—being the only pair in the universe that saw my weaknesses…I want to hear him scream, scream until he beg for me to stop…But, but…"

"Dorothy, stop it now," Relena pleaded. Dorothy was shaking now, and there were glitters at the corner of her eyes that threatened to leak. The tale had shifted to the first person point of view. As far as Relena could remember, it was the first time it happened. She left her half-emptied glass on the table and went over to the trembling woman.

"..but I can't," Dorothy said in a voice no higher than a whisper. "I can't do it. I don't want to hurt him."

Relena's scooted closer to Dorothy for an embrace, but just as she was inches from her, she found herself stunned for a while. Tears. There were tears freely flowing down the war deity's unblemished cheeks, some skidding to a stop at her chin before catapulting to her collarbone, some streaming continuously to her neck…

_Tears!_ Relena almost rejoiced at the thought. It was the first time she saw Dorothy shed tears. All this time she thought that the woman could never cry, that somehow, her system ceased secreting the salt water because its owner had stoned herself to feel any weak emotion. Relena clamped the feeling down as soon as it bloomed. This was no time to be happy for her best friend's sorrow.

She moved to envelop the weeping lady in her arms, but Dorothy pushed her away, shaking her head furiously.

"Dorothy, please…" Relena muttered.

Letting out a bitter laugh, Dorothy dabbed her face with her fingertips. "Now, there are two pairs of eyes that witnessed my weakness. Cupid's and the Peace dove's."

Relena shook her head a little and tried yet again to give Dorothy a hug. There was resistance at first, but soon, after a string of childish sobs, Dorothy relented.

"It's never a weakness to show weakness," Relena whispered to the platinum blonde strands. "Let it all out, Dorothy. It's not healthy to keep all of those inside."

"What a shame," Dorothy mulishly hiccoughed, though she made no move to loosen her arms around her friend's waist. "If only I don't know you'll hold a grudge against me, I will try suicide after this. But I think my living hell and the hell in afterlife don't really have any difference, so I'm postponing my death for a while."

Relena lightly slapped Dorothy's back. "Say something like that again and I'll be the one who'll kill you."

A forced giggle. "I'd love to have it in my tape recorder, just in case."

Both of them fell silent for a while. Relena could feel Dorothy's tears dampening her blouse, and apparently there were buckets of those still waiting to be shed. Every single minute that passed was stuffed with a mute confession of a faults and downfalls, of sins and regrets. After almost half an hour, they finally parted.

"Thank you, Miss Relena," Dorothy murmured, her eyes shooting to Relena's shoulder area. "Now I owe you one clean blouse."

Relena laughed at the statement, tugging a handkerchief from her pocket and offering it to Dorothy. "I'll be more than willing to be a world map of tearstains if it's equals to unburdening yourself of those kept regrets."

Dorothy surprised her by giving her a one-armed hug.

"So," Relena said through her toothy smile. "I think it'll be a happy-ever-after now?"

The platinum blonde snickered. "Not really. This fairytale has a sequel. I bumped into Cupid yesterday."

Relena stiffened. "What?"

She untangled herself from Dorothy's little cuddle and saw something that shocked her again—though this time it was more mysterious and…intriguing than the first one.

"Uh, Dorothy?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you blushing?"

The taller woman scowled at her. "Miss Relena, your eyes are deceiving you."

"_You_ are deceiving me," she retorted with a wet pout. "You're crying over this Cupid one minute then you're all but reddening at the mention of him in the next! Just who is this person?"

Relena felt like no drama ever passed between them when Dorothy put on that trademark sneer again. "You'll know soon enough."

"I want to know it now."

Dorothy teasingly batted her eyelashes at her. "You won't understand it right now. Just give me some time."

So Dorothy refused to choose her as a prospective listener this time. _Fantastic,_ Relena thought sarcastically, _but I don't think you're the only one who's got something up your sleeve here._

"It's almost time," Relena uttered. She paid her wristwatch one quick glance and grinned widely.

"Time for what?" Dorothy questioned, interest brewing in her voice upon seeing the other's face.

"You'll know soon enough," Relena answered with an imitation of Dorothy's branded leer.

* * *

Butterflies don't grow into caterpillars, it's the other way around.

So why did it feel like there were slithery, hair-raising sensations crawling coldly at the pit of his stomach right now? Quatre couldn't quite work out what was the matter with him. His lids felt terribly heavy, having been deprived of rest after his conversation with Relena last night, but he knew he was fully awake. The almost eight-hour jet journey from his colony didn't even lull him to the farthest end of dreamland. Sighing, he reread Relena's text message—the one with the directions where and when the date would be—for at most the hundredth time that hour alone just to make sure he was at the right restaurant.

Unknown to Relena, he already met Dorothy yesterday. Destiny was ruthlessly playful to let them cross their paths again. She was browsing for a good book and then he came over, too thrilled to talk to her after her visit in the hospital. He could've hugged her, but it was her who made the first move. It was the shock of her life.

She kissed him.

His system shuddered ecstatically at the memory. In that abrupt contact he managed to acquaint himself with the delicate arches of her rosebud lips even if he was not responding at all. Her kiss was hungry but purely experimental. The softness of her mouth lingered on his for quite a while; it wasn't even washed away when he ran his tongue on his bottom lip some minutes later. He savored a distant sweetness there that hinted of cherry. He blushed but smiled despite himself upon knowing what flavor of chap stick Dorothy uses.

But what confused him to no end was that Dorothy looked just as shocked as he was when she broke the contact.

Now, he was going to meet her again, thanks to her best friend.

He silently hoped that Relena survive what Dorothy would do to her after this one-sided blind date.

A sideways glance at the restaurant's clock informed him that they should be here now. Bringing his brows together, he once again peered at his cell phone to check the message. Then he felt the worm-like sensations in his stomach transform into one large snake that wrestled with his intestines the moment he picked up the clacks of high heels growing louder and louder…

* * *


	4. Chapter 3: Murmured Facades

**Disclaimer: **Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

* * *

**"Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**Chapter 3:** Murmured Facades

* * *

_"Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem."_ Maugham

* * *

"How could you, Relena!" Dorothy fumed through gnashed teeth, struggling to keep the dirtiest lineup of cusswords she could ever think of from spilling out. The expletives pressed teasingly itchy to the roof of her mouth and walls of her cheeks, her tongue ached to release them, but her manners told her it was not appropriate—especially that she was directing it to the former Queen of the World. So what she could only do was just to shriek the very words that fueled them: "_A blind date!"_

Relena brushed the strings of honey blonde locks that stormed across her face away, arching one brow when she noticed the lack of the title Dorothy would normally put before her name. Once she thought the locks were tightly secured behind her ear, the wind blustered again, wafting the same strands to slap across her now flushed face. Groaning, she rolled the window up.

"What's wrong with a blind date?" she coolly responded, drinking in the blur of colors outside the window. She combed her tousled mane with her hand and got her pinkie entangled with one of her now half-tied braids in the process. She clicked her tongue and inattentively fiddled with the knotted strands, feeling the extremity of rage reeking off the other woman that at that moment she almost regretted setting up the whole thing.

"_Wrong?"_ Dorothy retorted, furiously pounding at the horn button to punctuate the word with ear-splittingly scandalous hoots. "Miss Relena, you're asking me what's wrong?_ Everything!_ Seriously, I'd rather torture myself thinking about Qu—Cupid than meet up with some sickening milksop! Goodness, I can't believe that you—_you_ of all people, Miss Relena—would waste your time to make this horrible—"

"Dorothy, it's just a _date_," Relena calmly cut in, rolling her eyes. "It's not like you're going to die just by seeing a man."

Dorothy grumbled something incoherent under her breath and drove at top speed, positively declaring a silent war right then and there with the woman on the passenger seat. Relena picked the message up easily but she knew she didn't have to worry. If there was one person in this universe whom her best friend couldn't resist, it was her. She had proven this lots of times in the past, though not exactly during the war. Sighing, she busied herself freeing her hair of the plaits, taking in the fact that she couldn't make it appear neat again while she literally bounced on her seat.

Ten minutes passed, and the hush between them just thickened with pressure and showed no sign of diminishing. Dorothy, brooding, took a couple of deep breaths when the traffic rather built up before them. She mouthed numbers to herself but bits of her displeasure leaked out of the effort to keep herself calculated, showing in the series of horns she blew that arrested the attention of other already pissed off motorists. Some of them even popped their heads out of their windows to throw cusses. Dorothy didn't seem to care. She was too caught up in her own infuriation to notice someone else's. The air conditioning was on, but for the now somewhat cringing Relena it felt like she was seated inches away from a giant, open stove. _I know I'm going to pay for this,_ she thought shakily, biting her lower lip.

She just thought Dorothy would not take so much offense of the whole thing. After she listened to the release of well-kept emotions in the metaphorical tale that afternoon, everything seemed to be alright. Assuming that the lady was just in the right mood at the perfect time, she immediately told her to dress up because they were going somewhere where a 'surprise' was waiting. She earned a bunch of blackmail attempts and she was successful at keeping her mouth shut, though it cost them a waste of copious minutes until Dorothy decided to comply with her wishes. It was when they were already on the highway when she revealed the 'blind date'.

Well, blind date of sorts. Dorothy didn't know who her date would be. Quatre did.

And that did it.

The traffic jam lasted for about twenty minutes. Relena didn't even have the time to catch her breath when Dorothy recklessly pulled the car out of the maze of slower vehicles and up the skyway, increasing their speed every passing millisecond until they reached the limit. It was apparent that Dorothy hoped for more.

"Dorothy, you're not in Grand Theft Auto," Relena quietly spoke, peeling her eyes off the window when the blur made her a little dizzy. The ride rendered the seatbelt a useless strip of cloth limply adorning her body so she had to grip the leather seat with both her hands.

Silence.

"You know you can always drive somewhere else," Relena finally said, throwing sideways glances at the other blonde. "That's why I let you bring your car. I'm not forcing you." _And Quatre would understand for sure_, she silently added.

A hiss escaped Dorothy's gritted teeth. "Timing is everything, huh, Miss Relena?"

Relena snapped her head to Dorothy's direction, not quite getting what Dorothy had just said. It's just when the angry woman slowed and pulled the ten-wheel yellow limousine to the parking lot of a restaurant that Relena understood. They were already at the venue.

"You're not dumb, Dorothy," Relena muttered, offended. "You already know I've given you the choice the moment I decided that we use your car."

She fumbled to undo her seatbelt while Dorothy took a deep breath, smoothing her silk hair and peering to the rear-view mirror.

"I hope I look presentable," Dorothy spat mockingly, sporting a scowl. "Let's go meet today's Prince Charming."

"I'm so sorry," Relena uttered. She wasn't sure if Dorothy even heard her, as the taller woman had immediately left the car and slammed the door shut with excessive force that shook the whole limo.

* * *

"There he is," Relena cheerfully chimed, eyes widening brightly at the sight of someone Dorothy was positive she would not want to see. She noted the change in Relena's face from the moment they entered the pricey restaurant to the instant she spotted the damn guy.

Dorothy bit her tongue when one of the six-cornered oaths menaced to slip out loudly. The suddenly very happy girl dragged her by the arm towards her anathema, giving her squeezes that she thought was some kind of 'good luck'. She rolled her eyes.

_Good luck to the man_, she thought irritably. _Wish I don't find anything here that I could kill him with. _She inhaled a lungful of air, hoping it would somehow mollify her boiling blood and the surge of disgust that blended in.

"Are we late?" Relena excitedly breathed to the man Dorothy could not see, being blocked intentionally by the first.

"Not at all."

The voice filched a heartbeat from Dorothy's chest.

_No, _she gulped, images of her disgraceful mistake yesterday whorling in her head._ Impossible..._

Relena stepped out of the way and there he was—the Cupid in her unfinished fairytale, coyly regarding her with his hypnotically dazzling eyes. A frosty tongue of air licked the length of her back, seeping out the blood from her face that left her shining with a quite unhealthy pallor.

"Miss Dorothy," Quatre greeted almost hesitantly. He displayed his lopsided smile, the one she remembered him wearing yesterday, the same sugary beam playing on the lips of the boy she mistakenly took as a part of her regular daydreams…

"Dorothy, this is Quatre Raberba Winner," Relena playfully said, derailing her nervous train of thoughts. "Of course you know him, the heir of the Winner Company and all. He stayed for a while at the Institute with Heero, do you remember?"

Dorothy cocked a nod. She never directly informed Relena that she and Quatre fought against each other personally during the war. Her oblique admittance of this was the tale she told the unsuspecting girl just hours ago; it appeared that Quatre didn't tell the vice foreign minister, too.

Relena paused for some seconds. "I figure that you know he's also a… _pilot_."

Dorothy, though very edgy, simpered at the incomplete statement. "Of course. Nice to meet you _again,_ Mr. Winner."

"Nice to see you again, too, Miss Dorothy."

The two tasted the meaningful exchange, leaving Relena thinking it was their first reunion in months. The unsuspecting blonde released Dorothy's arm, winking at her before spinning around and leaning to whisper something to the Arabian blonde. Shapeless pink stains bobbed up on the boy's cheeks.

"Alright then," Relena chirped in an exaggeratedly corky tone, vaguely waving a hand, "I'll leave you now. Got some appointment in an hour…"

_Lie_, Dorothy spat mutely, throwing daggers at the girl who pretended to look at her wristwatch.

"See you later, Dorothy," Relena brushed it off. "Bye, Quatre."

"Take care," Quatre mumbled.

Relena slid past Dorothy purposely, whispering, "Forget your little Cupid for a while, okay?"

_You just made that the most impossible thing to do now,_ Dorothy snarled in her head.

Both of them watched as Relena sauntered away from them and out of the restaurant. Both of them stared into thin air for a minute after the dear honey blonde was gone, drowned in their own thoughts, before acknowledging each other's presence again.

* * *

Quatre was more than willing to have his Space Heart traded for the ability to hold back blushes just for that moment alone. Since the minute Relena exited the place, his temperature had soared up considerably. He didn't need to look at the mirror to see the little red apples there that were his cheeks. Aside from the heat under his skin, the amusement on his date's face was far from enough.

He had seen the shock on Dorothy's face when she finally discovered he was her date, but she recovered her posture as quickly as she had lost it. There wasn't even the slightest hint of embarrassment in her actions—that were in his—from yesterday's little reunion.

"I don't want to assume anything, but it seems that you liked my kiss," Dorothy said with a vicious smirk. She stabbed one of the lamb dumplings on her plate with emphasis more than what she intended, sending Quatre wincing. "How did you do it?"

The heat seemed to rise up a couple of degrees more. He refused to meet her stare and instead glared at his own plate, attempting not to cower as he picked up his own fork, imagining a gleaming fencing foil. "I don't set this all up, if that's what you're implying."

Dorothy's eyebrows twitched. "Oh? Then I wonder why Miss Relena will set us up all of a sudden?"

Another implication. "I kept whatever happened yesterday to myself," Quatre replied curtly, then forced himself to give her a smile.

"You didn't seem surprised at all when you saw me," she pushed. The sneer on her face told him that the smile he flashed wasn't a smile at all.

Now what? Would he talk about his six-month-old nightly _slash_ morning phone calls that led to this date? Relena had been a good, indirect confidant of him to keep that, even to her best friend. He didn't tell Relena to keep it, though; she was free to tell it to anyone, and he didn't care at all. It was apparent too that it indeed was a one-sided blind date, otherwise Dorothy would not be here. But he hadn't prepared himself for this. He got too nervy just by the fact of seeing her again that he hadn't really thought how it would go, especially with yesterday's event that complicated everything.

Another intentional clank of fork from the woman made him flinch again. The sound made the scar on his side to throb a little.

"It's because I know you're coming," came his curt, truthful answer.

_Wrong move._

"Who's mad?" Dorothy asked, her voice slightly trembling with barely kept emotion. "Or am I the only one who thought it was a blind date after all?"

Quatre shifted in his seat, hesitated, then looked into her eyes. "Technically, yes. Miss Relena must have figured you're not into such things so she decided not to inform you until you're on the way." At least there was a truth in there.

"So Miss Relena must have thought _you_ are _into _this kind of cheapness," Dorothy smirked harshly, "that's why she told you."

"I knew from the very start that it was you I'm going to see…" he said with a gulp. "Even if it wasn't in the form of a date, I would have agreed to see you. I think it'll be a good chance to…settle things."

_To what?_ Quatre questioned his own words. An uncomfortable silence crept over the table for a while, their stares attempting to unlock something they knew they couldn't. Surprisingly, it was Dorothy who looked away first.

"We don't have anything to settle," she churlishly spat.

"Yes we do," Quatre replied readily, searching his head for something that would justify his previous statement. He found it effortlessly. "And it's not just all about what happened yesterday."

He waited expectantly for her to respond, but she just focused on her food, ignoring him, mulling over what he had just said.

Then he grimaced. _Stupid!_ Why did he not consider the past would hurt someone else just as largely as it hurt him? Especially _her_. Just for the sake of saying something in reply to her, he.....no, it was _wrong_, using the past to cover his cowardliness! It was not even near the reason why they were here. It was supposed to be an ordinary date. Clamping down the panic and the strings of apologies, he studied her face to search for the hurt he supposedly inflicted on her. What he saw was just pure blankness.

Then the disyllabic excuses that were harbored in his throat and the terror he felt vanished altogether. The moment he fixed his eyes on her, he realized that he couldn't remove them easily, and it was indeed easier to look at her without her misty eyes doing the same. He drank in the delicate lines of her face, the golden locks that somehow escaped her black velvet hairband to fall over her brow, the long lashes that veiled the very eyes he was still so unnerved by, and the small frown she was wearing on her lips…lips he..

His thought was cut off when Dorothy looked up, her branded smirk slipping in place.

"That doesn't tell me anything. For settlement or closure? I don't suppose Miss Relena knew about what happened in Libra."

Quatre didn't say anything, taken a little off guard by her penetrating gaze and how calmly she mentioned Libra. Somehow was toying with the idea that Dorothy was just playing innocent—that she could read minds with her glassy eyes.

"You can ask her why later," he managed to say as he looked down, the red on his face deepening, if that was even possible at the moment. "I think we should not be arguing about that. We have our own business here."

"Then let's just get it over and done with." The scorn that poured out with the statement was extreme.

"…Right."

Dorothy took a swig from her juice then resumed eating, throwing some eerie upward glances at him at intervals of looking at her food. He knew she could see him shiver as he searched for the right way to start this conversation, the way she tilted her head like that and how her smug grin seem to get a little wider.

"So…about Libra.." Quatre started, face now curling in regret. "I'm so sorry."

He watched how her jaw stopped moving at his words.

"So even you can be sarcastic."

He recoiled at the derisiveness that tinged the sentence, furrowing his forehead. "No, I mean it. I didn't have the choice back then…I have to leave. I didn't really want to leave you all alone in a battleship that was more than halfway on being destroyed, but the safety of the people on earth is at risk. I need to help the others. I know you are just in shape to survive on your own but…"

He closed his eyes before he finish his statement. "…but it just doesn't feel right."

* * *

The quick leaps of her heart stung her breastbone. He said he was sorry. Sorry for leaving her behind on Libra. She would never meet anyone more foolish! Seriously, what was he thinking?! What have become of him? Just shell-shocked maybe? Or just pathetically thick? Did the war leave _that_ much damage in his head?

Intense irritation and panic—or something akin to it—quashed thickly into her pulse, profusely gushing there to suddenly replace blood, drumming their way around her whole system to finally gnaw at her heart.

She choked, grabbed her juice and downed it in a gulp.

She was right. She knew all along that there was something wrong with his head.

"Dorothy?"

"You're apologizing," she incredulously breathed, making it sound like a cross between a statement and a question and failing right away when it rang more like a severe accusation. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and tried to regain her composure.

"Yes…" the rather confused and concerned boy said carefully, " but Miss Dorothy, if you don't really want to talk about it...I mean, I think it's really the reason why we're here, but if you don't feel like discussing it—"

"Have I told you already that I hate you?" she frigidly retorted. She had her shaking hands clumped into white little balls on her lap, her nails digging painfully into her palm that she was almost sure they had cut her skin. Why did he have to do this? Wasn't it enough that he had shaken her to the point that she almost didn't know who she was?

Quatre's eyes widened but softened quickly, though in a sad way. "I guess it can't be helped."

And then she wasn't human anymore. Hatred, uncertainty, regret, panic, and clutters of more emotions she didn't care to classify replaced the flesh beneath her skin; they even seemed to have melted her bones in a way that she suddenly felt like a limp strip of vegetable. He didn't need to do this. He didn't need to magnify her deepest fear—buried and protected by newly-built walls—a hundred times more, and forcefully shove it to her face. He didn't need to make her see that every second, he just kept on getting closer and closer to her…

She closed her eyes and attempted, in vain, to scare away her inner ghosts that flitted in her chest. Like every battles she had with herself in the past, she ended as the one being too terrified that she had no choice but to drive herself away back to reality. Every time that happens she always curse herself, and she did now. Unwillingly, she lifted her lids and stared straight into the eyes of the dejected-looking man in front of her.

"Then tell me…do you hate me?"

She watched Quatre stiffen. He settled his drink down but didn't let it go, absently scrawling something on its dewy surface.

"That's one point I want to clarify to you, too, Miss Dorothy. I never hated you."

"You don't have to lie."

"I'm not lying."

"I almost killed you."

"I've…killed a lot of people," he anxiously stated, his eyes now unsteady, drifting here and there but never straight on her. "What you've done is nothing compared to what I have. I often wonder if Allah could ever forgive me for my sins—sometimes I don't even know if He still heeds my prayers all this time. But still, it's a war. You're lucky enough if you're one to survive, and no one gets out alive unscathed. Uh, but I do hope you weren't harmed at all after the…"

The blue-green eyes widened with alarm when they shot back to her face.

"…Dorothy?"

"What?"

Quatre seemed to wilt as he looked at her, and he moved as if to stand up and scoot a little closer. She leaned back farther against her chair to discourage whatever he was planning and he got it, slouching back to his own seat after rising a mere inch.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered brokenly with a little shake of his head. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

She was about to give him a disdainful comment on his apologies but stopped in mid-speak, tasting something salty when she opened her mouth. A hand automatically rose to run over her lips. They were wet, but not with the sweet juice. Tracing where the saline fluid came from, she crawled her fingers up her cheek, and gasped.

She was crying.

"Ow..."

She inwardly cussed. She knew she should have done something to secure an improvised façade, but it seemed that her body wasn't in obedient mode today. Instead of swabbing the tears away, her palms cupped her face as she bowed down and continued weeping, letting the pale curtain of her hair to pointlessly hide her from the same witness of the same weakness she showed not that so long ago.

A somewhat relaxing warmth swathed her as she wept more, and she only discovered what it was when a feather-like voice fluttered in her ear. "I'm sorry."

How Quatre had dragged her chair back without her noticing and had his arms wrapped around her, she didn't know. All that her mind could comprehend at the moment was that she needed to cry all her heartaches out. The idea of pushing him away did brush by her mind, but all of what she could make out as her remaining strength was all bent on the weeping; she found herself too weak to do anything other than that.

"Dorothy…" he tightened his embrace when she finally peeled her hands off her face and leaned against his chest, clutching at his suit like a frightened child.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, voice muffled. "I...I didn't mean to hurt you…"

She felt him shifted and placed his chin to rest on the top of her head. "It's alright, it's alright," she heard him whisper, one warm hand rubbing her back. "You don't need to apologize about that..."

Sensing a little discomfort about their position, she let go of his suit, slid her arms around his waist and pulled him closer. The gesture elicited a gasp from Quatre but he didn't make any move to push her away or break the contact.

So the streams flowed, each drop a symbolic plea for forgiveness. Her regrets about hurting other people, too, poured out, and for a moment she thought they would never stop. If it weren't for the strong arms and the strength they seemed to lend her that moment, she knew she would pass out.

'_So this is it? After all these years you're going to end it like this? I knew all along that you weren't much of a good architect, Dorothy Dermail Catalonia. The walls you built were nothing but trifling toys!'_

She froze slightly at the little voice but didn't attempt to strain her ears to hear it again. She knew it quite well—also was the fact that it didn't come in sound waves.

'_A fairytale indeed!' _the voice mocked, ripe with disparagement. '_Just when did the war-hungry little beast become the damsel in distress?! Hah! And that cuddle must be sooo warm to be able to thaw your supposedly ice-cold barriers. Such a sweet scene—you must know it was the most damn sickening thing you can do with your arms!'_

Dorothy chewed her bottom lip, the last words of the voice ringing in her ears.

'_Wake up from your dreams, thrash,'_ the voice leered again. _'And don't fool yourself believing he somehow cares for you. The man cares for the whole world and it just so happens that_ that_ whole world unfortunately includes you.'_

More tears fell. Quatre hummed and shifted a little to brush her hair. Did she even hope that he would ever return this…whatever this messy emotion she now held for him?

'_You know you are different. Whereas those who received the arrows that Cupid shot would fall oh-so-deeply in love with each other, you were just turned into some kind of masochist, directing your affection to the little shooter. Snap the crap out of your head now. You've shown too much already.'_

She pressed her mouth up in a straight line and gathered her brows. She knew those final words would put a stop to the overflow of saltwater. Like an alarm clock impatiently shrilling to drag her from the dreamland, the voice had somewhat flickered some sense into her.

No pushing the snooze button now. Time to wake up.

No matter how much her body seemed to be indisposed, she untangled herself from him with a forceful push. He gasped and regarded her with an odd expression swimming on his face, the shock evident in his eyes. When he saw the coldness back in her eyes, despite the film of tears still hovering in them, he reverted to the crestfallen little prince that he was earlier. His shoulders slumped with a heartfelt sigh and he reluctantly stepped back from her.

Dorothy tried not to notice the chill that hissed in the very instant his arms disconnected with her body. She scrubbed at her eyes, then scowled at the wetness that clung to her knuckles after doing so. Quatre had gone back to his chair, his eyes holding so many questions he dared not ask her that moment.

It took her half a minute before she spoke up.

"I think our business ends here," she said with a contemptuous smirk. She gathered herself and held her chin up. "Mr. Winner, you know you've seen too much. You've witness something you shouldn't, but I must inform you that I couldn't care less if you want to broadcast it to the whole universe. And I must congratulate you. It seems that you've hit whatever goal you set for this little meeting."

"That's—"

"I must excuse myself now," she interrupted him with a wave. "Have a great day, Mr. Winner."

She leered at his gaping face and strode away proudly, not paying him a second look, her heels clacking against the floor.

'_Masochistic',_ the voice came back. _'There's just so much you could find pleasure in. Pain is everywhere.'_

She merely smirked in affirmation, but this time, she answered back.

"He is just the perfect fetish of a masochist. No one and nothing inflicts pain in me more than he does. Not even the pain you're saying that is _everywhere._"

She nodded to herself, an unnoticed tear rolling down the hill of her cheek. "Just so perfect..."

* * *


	5. Chapter 4: Ersatz

**Disclaimer: **Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

**A/N:** First part of this chapter takes place in Endless Waltz where Dorothy was taunting the mob. The rest takes place at the end (movie version) where Quatre and the Maguanacs were working to complete the reconstruction of colony x-18999.

* * *

**"Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**CHAPTER 4:** Ersatz

* * *

"Of all the toys available, none is better designed than the owner himself. A large multipurpose plaything, its parts can be made to move in almost any direction. It comes completely assembled, and it makes a sound when you jump on it."- _Stephen Baker_

"The heart is making forever the head its fool."- _Francois de la Rouchefoucauld_

* * *

Peace was shattered not so long after she learned to somewhat enjoy it—if not truly love it. She wasn't surprised at all. Fighting was innate in every living thing, and the heights of the urge to initiate battles could only be found on the minds of the highest thinking animals who liked to call themselves humans.

It was a funny thing, but she wasn't happy at all at war's re-entry in her life. She remembered following the gazes of the confused mob in the city plaza that evening, and the moment she glued her eyes to the giant monitor, she realized that maybe war wasn't really for her. She could no longer feel the excitement she used to have back in the first Eve War. She watched as the giant brown and gray clouds devour the details of the fight, small comet-like lights shooting here and there over the smoky scene indicating the heated exchange of ammunition and the clashes of metals. She just felt nothing save a distant longing for this to stop sooner. If she'd witnessed this a year ago, she would be experiencing euphoria, and she would do anything to get to the exact battleground just for the sake of feeling how the ground shakes and hearing how each shot screams. She knew that she would stop at nothing just to get a front row seat to the most natural theater in human life.

But for now, she knew that her battlefield wasn't the one flashing on that screen—but exactly where she was: with the people.

This war wasn't the battles of the Gundams against those new Serpents of her little second cousin.

It's the battle of the people against their inborn urge of creating wars, their own battle to help re-establish the peace that they said they want to maintain forever.

So she taunted the unmoving, gaping men. Apparently, the wagging tail analogy she spat stung them to the point that one bragged of shooting down five mobile suits in the previous war. She snorted at the little trophy and mocked them some more until they finally realized their role in the history. That was the least she could do.

Just as quickly as it has disappeared, peace came knocking back and everybody welcomed it, hopefully forever.

Dorothy scowled when the wind skidded by and almost blew her hat off. She held it in place with one hand and pawed at the flying hem of her baby blue sundress with the other, silently cursing when she felt the cold wind brush against her exposed calves.

Well, maybe world peace was back but then again sometimes she felt as though the world doesn't really include her, despite what a nagging voice inside was screaming at her. There wasn't enough peace in herself at the present moment.

This feeling was by no means connected to Mariemaia's attempted usurpation, though she wasn't denying that the event affected her to some extent. But days—months even—before that, her peace was already ruined, and she was more than sure that she was on the brink of losing her sanity.

The previous months were awful, especially after that godforsaken blind date. There were times that she would find herself crying with no particular reason but more often were the moments when she would scream at the top of her lungs out of frustration because she could no longer comprehend what she was feeling or thinking. Trying to understand them just made it a little more painful, especially when the denial part kicks in. No, she was no longer the Dorothy everybody came to know. She was a nothing but a shell of unwanted emotions right now, emotions that were dangerously sharp enough to slice through her steel being. The stress in the workplace was not helping. She sure did love playing with danger, but with this one she knew she wouldn't win. She was in no shape in fighting a losing battle, especially not one which could destroy her whole being after the game was over.

She swore she wouldn't let that happen.

But there she was now, emotionally unarmed, walking nearer and nearer to the very object that would bring her complete destruction. There wasn't a rational explanation about it but she found herself unable to refuse what Relena requested her. The vice foreign minister had intentionally cleared up her schedule for the day without informing her, and her yellow private shuttle was already set to travel to L3-X18999 thirty minutes prior to her knowledge of the request. There were arguments of course, but in the end she was still the one sent sulking aboard her own shuttle. How dare that girl! Wasn't the silent treatment she was giving her enough?

Deep inside she knew she could snub the whole thing and just send someone else to accomplish Relena's stupid favor. Or at least have her servants just contact him up via video phone. But somehow, there was a part of her that wanted this. She could sense her best friend's ulterior motive there, but at the moment she didn't seem to care.

After all, she was a masochist… right?

Then it would count normal for her to meet her favorite fetish…though all the while she had to push away, with disgust, the thought of her missing him.

"Excuse me, miss? I'm sorry but you can't loiter around here."

Dorothy started when she felt a hand cupped her elbow. She narrowed her eyes at the brown fingers, spun around and found herself face to face with a construction worker. She had to look up even though the man was no more than a couple of inches taller than her. The fake sunlight made the beads of sweat on his brow glitter, couples of them pouring down all over his face from the damp hair that disappeared behind his scarlet fez.

She furrowed her brow, rubbed her eyes and studied his face more intently. His face was all wet, but his handlebar mustache appeared to be dry. Waterproof? She had to stifle a giggle when the said fuzz twitched slightly at her silence.

"It's dangerous here. Construction, as you can see," he said thickly, wiping his forehead with his arm. "But if you're lost, I'll be glad to help you find your way."

"No, thank you, sir," she responded with a smirk, "but I'm not lost. I'm actually looking for Mr. Winner."

The man raised a bushy brow. "Master Quatre?"

She said, "Yes," and her mouth was still open to add that the vice foreign minister has a message for him when a louder voice boomed behind her, leaving her gaping like stupid.

"Hey, Ahmed!" another construction worker, with the same red fez but with a pair of sunglasses perched up on his nose, came trudging towards them. A malicious smile was adorning the sheen mask of sweat on his face. He looped his arm around the shoulders of the said Ahmed and tugged him a little down to his direction. "You never told me you're a pedophile."

Ahmed pulled himself out of the hold and gave the other man a small jab at the cheekbone. "You need to get rid of those sunglasses every once in a while, Abdul." He cocked a nod in Dorothy's direction. "She's a winsome young lady, not a baby. And she's looking for Master Quatre."

The blonde pressed her lips into a predatory smile at Abdul when the sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose to reveal curious eyes. She gave him a small nod.

"The vice foreign minister sent me here," she said coolly, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. "I have a message for Mr. Winner."

The men exchanged meaningful looks.

"Master Quatre's with the Captain right now," Abdul informed, pushed his glasses back up and quirked a toothy grin. "I think they're taking a break, the last time I saw them. I'll go get him for you."

He waved a sweaty hand in farewell, but stopped in mid-stride, turning around to face her fully again. She could feel his eyes studying her up and down from behind those black lenses. "Who shall I say is waiting? I mean, does Master Quatre know you personally?"

She sneered. "Yes. Dorothy Catalonia."

"Dorothy Catalonia," Abdul muttered under his breath, tilting his head. When he thought it didn't ring any bell, he shrugged, smiled, then turned and strode away to where large piles of metal sheets loomed against the bright artificial sky.

"I need to get back to work, Miss Catalonia," she heard Ahmed politely stated, pulling out his fez to fan himself with it. His brown mane was plastered flat to his skull, but some stubborn strands were standing out in funny places. "Master Quatre will be here soon enough. He's too much of a gentleman to keep a beautiful woman waiting."

She let a disdainful smirk out but before she could retort, Ahmed stormed away from her with a wink. She scowled at his retreating form, then drank in the surroundings. She listened to the cacophony of the drilling, metal colliding with each other, and the shouted commands of construction workers strewn across the site. When the noises didn't pass to claim her whole attention as she anxiously waited, she sought for other things that could at least ease her. She didn't find it at the site, but in her mind.

The Winner corporation had shouldered the responsibility of reconstructing colony X18999 after the war. The corporation does have real estates and a handful of smaller businesses in the colony so it was understandable that the corporation would somehow aid in the repair of the place. But Dorothy was a little perplexed when she learned that Quatre was in the place himself, working as a construction worker with his band of faithful Arab comrades whom she was informed were former paramilitary group members back in the war.

He was being too kind for his own good. He was now a businessman, the wealthiest in the solar system. He could hire hundreds of workers to serve him. And his business and political adversaries could hire hundreds of assassins to kill him. Was he so thick to not even think of that?

Her thoughts were disturbed when she felt a butterfly squeeze on the shoulder.

"Miss Dorothy," she heard his voice after the touch was gone. She exhaled and absently nudged her chest to will her heart to stop drumming hard before whirling around to face the speaker.

"Hello, Mr. Quatre Winner."

An eerie sensation washed over her when she saw him. The organ in her chest disobediently slammed loudly against her sternum again, as if desperate to get out of her denying body. Of course he was still the same. His eyes were still the brightest pair, their color still mysteriously changing between the shades of blue and green, and the warmth and sincerity in them never faltering. He was clad in the same clothes as Ahmed and Abdul except that he wasn't wearing a fez but a dark yellow construction helmet with a pair of goggles sitting on it.

His proximity yanked her mind back to what happened in their 'date' not so long ago. Recalling those moments made her ache to feel the warm refuge of his arms again, but she knew that her exaggeratedly overbearing side would pester her for being a shameless doormat, just like what it did to her back when she had laid her raw sadness in front of him…

But God, she wanted to pull him closer!

…yet at the same time, she wanted to push him away.

Damn him and whatever one may call this disease he imposed on her.

He flashed a smile. "It's been quite a while. How are you?"

"I'm very well, thank you," she managed to say without her voice quivering. "Miss Relena sent me here. She's extending an invitation."

Quatre arched a brow. She saw him stole a glance at the clipboard he was clasping with his right hand. "Invitation?"

Dorothy cocked an upward nod. "A party to permanently mark the beginning of true peace, Miss Relena had said." She made sure that no scorn was mixed with the sentence before she continued. "It's a masquerade ball, just a little gathering. Our dear vice foreign minister said your presence there was important, even if it's by no means a political or business function."

He tipped his head to one side, causing his helmet to slip down and cover his eyes. He pushed it back up with a finger to reveal that, _that_ lopsided smile she was now so accustomed with.

"I'm sure to attend," he happily stated. He pressed his mouth shut in a thin beam, but she could readily tell he wanted to say something more. He held his clipboard up and thumbed away what it seemed like dirt, or ink, from the file fastened to it. Whether it was a poor delaying tactic or just a way of teasing her to ask what he else he was thinking or wanted to say, she didn't bother to know.

Heaving a sigh, she looked away and folded her hands behind her back, glowering past the wide brim of her hat and at the false clouds that hovered above them. She thought of another topic to fill in the silence, but for some peculiar reason she found herself suddenly uninterested in talking, her attention now arrested by the clouds. She pursed her lips, attempting to figure out what animals those swimming gossamer things were making. She made out a cat, a dog, an elephant…

"You could've just sent it through e-mail or the vid phone," Quatre pulled her out of her hush-hush childish stance. She looked back at him and saw a bit of his creased brow behind his damp bangs, his eyes running over the file.

"I don't mean to disturb your work," she spat with a frown, haughtily jutting her chin out. "Of course I thought of extending the invitation through the most convenient ways, and I would have done that if only Miss Relena didn't conspire with everyone around me to send me here _forcefully_. I don't care whatever her intentions were. This is anyway one of the only things a war thrash could do for the heroine of our times."

Quatre glanced up at her. "Don't say that. You're not a war thrash."

And he's doing that again. Did he really have to attempt to make everyone happy, to assure that even the ugliest creatures have a sparkling beauty inside? Even if it means lying in every chance he gets? They locked stares for a couple of heartbeats, then the helmet slipped down again to cut his line of sight and their unspoken battle of wills.

With a predatory leer, she scooted to him and propped the rim of the helmet up with her trigger finger before he could reach up to do it himself.

"What would you know of me, Mr. Winner?" she breathed flirtingly to his slightly surprised, slowly reddening face. She leaned an inch more so that their noses touched and their breaths mingled.

He stiffened at the contact and Dorothy expected him to balk.

He didn't.

The electric blue hue of his eyes glowed to weaken the green, and with its sudden flaring up was something…something _very _frightening, yet unreadable, making it more dangerous. Dorothy never liked anything she couldn't fully read.

"Do you really want to hear what I know about you, Miss Dorothy?" he muttered the challenge to her mouth. She let out a gasp and backed away, and it took her a moment to transform the surprised expression to a furious one.

"Don't you talk like you know me inside out," her acidic hiss spewed out of her gnashed teeth.

The Arab didn't even flinch at her vitriol. He exhaled and pulled the annoying headgear off. "I may not know you completely, but I can sure bet that I know you better than anyone around you."

A grimace crept to her lips. She wasn't certain if this was because of the awful truth he so confidently threw to her face or because of the new sets of sore imprints her fingernails were leaving in her palms. She didn't bother knowing which the real cause was. Both reasons were annoyingly irrational for her to lose control of her temper.

Quatre tucked the helmet under his right arm and ran his free hand on his perspiration-laden locks. He blinked up at the clouds.

"The clouds were fascinating things, don't you think?" he asked serenely, his cheeks still smudged with bright magenta.

Dorothy would have agreed with him if he asked that earlier. But she was fuming now, and all what she desired at this moment was to contradict whatever he says, to patronize him. To downgrade his little beliefs, even if that means gainsaying some of her own.

"I don't see anything out of the ordinary in those formless lumps of water vapor." She huffed.

He dropped his eyes back to her and blinked twice, surprised. Inwardly, she laughed, chalking one point to her imaginary scoreboard as she got to have him the reaction she wanted. The helmet slid off his arm as he gaped at her, but he caught it in one fluid motion before it even disconnect with his skin.

"But you were just looking at them like…" He sought for the right terms to complete his statement in a way like he was tweaking an unpalatable ort wedged between his teeth. Dorothy happily jotted another point for her when he visually sagged and officially decided to leave the sentence unfinished with a sigh.

He casted his eyes down and he smiled a tired but blissful smile. "When I was a kid I used to refer to them as my own personal Play-Doh. I've got a lot of playthings then, all of which cost a fortune, but none of them could ever equal the price of the clouds for me. I couldn't shape them with my hands like I would with ordinary modeling clay, but I could mold them into anything I want by just imagining. I thought it was magic."

Dorothy concentrated all the ripe condescension she hoarded to that smirk plastered on her lips, but she didn't say anything. Quatre lifted his eyes from the ground and focused them to her—past her. He was looking at her but was definitely seeing something else.

"I marveled at the zoo that I could sculpt with them, though at times I'd cry when I couldn't straighten the neck of the giraffe or when I thought the rhino was just too thin. Once, I asked my nanny if I should put the lion cub in a cage the first time I imagined it and she told me to let it roam free. Everyone in the mansion didn't know what to do to me when I bawled at the top of my lungs because the cub never came back."

He giggled. Dorothy had to twist her face into an unsightly scowl so that she could transform the unpermitted smile that broke across her face. She cursed under her breath.

"The zoo wasn't the only place I could build with them," he stated with a tiny hint of silly smugness. "I also established my own castle—and even my own colony!"

He blinked twice. Dorothy was sure he was seeing her now.

"Do you know that my first car was a combi coupé?" he asked playfully. "Yes. A fluffy white one. That was the only car I own that I haven't got the chance of driving around the colony."

She silently watched as different expressions flit in and out of his countenance, and the ambience seemed to thicken with nostalgia. Dorothy didn't like such an atmosphere. She had to break it.

"You're born in a colony, am I correct?" she asked, displaying an insulting mimicry of his one-sided smile.

Quatre's eyes narrowed with curiosity. He gave her a quick nod. "Why?"

"It seems that you're quite drawn to artificiality. _Third-rate, third-hand_ artificiality, to be precise."

The look of surprise that pinched his face was priceless, and Dorothy had to permit herself a snort of triumph.

"How can you say that?" he questioned, brow creased. "And what does that have to do with anything?"

Dorothy noted the raise of his voice for half an octave and the edge of irritation that tinged it. Apparently, he wasn't pleased about the topic. She grinned devilishly at Quatre's blank space in her imaginary score board. "I used to have toys, too, Mr. Winner. Some toys just serve as objects of entertainment for kids. And most of them, like art, just imitate reality."

He waited for her to continue. His eyes betrayed his patient pretense.

"You could've picked up a battalion of toy soldiers and play war. You could've tied a cape around your neck and play superman. Or," she inserted a smirk, "you could've tugged your teddy bear and play house with your nanny. They're all the same anyway; they only replicate reality…_directly_. Oh, you could've picked everything, but you picked up the clouds!"

Wind blew Dorothy's hat off her head. Her hair swirled wildly behind her as she quickly clawed the hat back to her head before it goes too far for her to reach it. The wind had tousled Quatre's locks as well, but he seemed not to care, even if some of the bangs threatened to dip into his eyes in those haphazard angles.

"I'm sorry but I can't see your point," he impassively whispered, so low that he might have just said it to himself.

"I haven't shown you my point yet," she answered in the same fashion, though more underscored was the scorn she juxtaposed with it. She crossed her arms over her chest. "What I mean to say, Mr. Winner, is that you're making an _imitation_ of an _imitation_ of an _imitation_. Toys, like what I'd said, are artificial in themselves alone. An imitation is abhorrent enough to itself. Then you imitated the existence of toys in those clouds. And as far as everyone around here knows, the clouds in this colony were poor copies of the real clouds on Earth. Machine-generated. Wonderfully false."

Quatre's jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to counter-attack those statements, like he wanted to defend something—_anything_. But for an enigmatic reason, he chose to be silent. She caught a glimpse of his hands, now balled up into fists, their knuckles protruding against the almost translucent skin that covers them. For a scant second she thought the very bones might tear the skin. She reached out and enveloped one of his hands in her own and caressed it with her thumbs. He stiffened at the gesture, the fist loosening.

Dorothy smiled her usual sneer. "My sincere apologies, Quatre Raberba Winner. I'm only here as a messenger, not a nuisance. I must go now."

Yes, she was going to leave it like this. Let his own emotion burn him up after she'd gone. Smirking, she gently slid her hands away from his, but his fist quickly unrolled and reached out to grasp one of her hands. She caught her breath at his firm touch. When she glared up at his face, his face held not even the slightest hint of the silent anger—or so what Dorothy acknowledged as anger—he had just a second ago. Instead, he put on that celestially calm expression with the highlights of a nauseatingly sweet smile.

"I think I don't mind at all," he said sotto voce, leaning a bit closer. "At least I've seen and talked to you. I've missed you, I think."

Dorothy lost her will to glare upon hearing his faltering last words. Their stares locked for a while until Dorothy pulled her hand out of his in a hurry like he suddenly became caustic.

"I should be on my way now," she announced indignantly. She felt heat. Damn it, was she blushing?

"Are you going to the ball as well?"

She halted in mid-turn. "Yes. Miss Relena insists for my presence."

"Then may I have the honor of escorting you?"

Dorothy realized that Quatre's scoreboard was chalked with two points already. She frowned and felt the heat spreading to her neck. What now? Refuse or Accept? Emotions…or pride? The minute of silence that passed between them seemed to last for an eternity. And in that eternity, Quatre's smile never lost its hope.

"Miss Dorothy," he said to cut the hush, "I want to be your escort."

At that moment, at that showcase of overconfidence, Dorothy decided she was more of a wise and proud person than an emotionally intelligent one.

Only, her lips wouldn't cooperate. If there was a part of her body that knew what she really wants—or needs—aside from her heart, it was her lips. They were heart's co-conspirators. They have touched something that they shouldn't. They didn't really control what she was saying, of course, but they certainly knew when or where to do their _job_. So now they stayed pressed in a thin line that kept the harshest version of her decline to his offer from spilling out.

Quatre's smile widened. "I hope this silence means yes."

He gave her a small bow to signal his departure. Dorothy couldn't talk yet, as her lips were still glued shut by an unknown force. She was only able to open them short enough to breathe out through her mouth, and by that time the blonde angel was already gone.

* * *

Quatre turned her back to Dorothy, suppressing a giggle when the image of her semi-confused, semi-furious expression with her visual embarrassment in those dark pink smeared across her cheeks and neck clung to his mind.

He turned around the corner. When he was sure he was out of Dorothy's earshot and she couldn't see him anymore, he set the giggles free. He was also well aware that he himself was flushed, and he was happy. Dorothy didn't give him an official answer to his offer, but he'd do what he could just to at least dance with her at the ball. He could almost imagine her fully masking her face or changing her hairstyle just for the sake of her not being recognized, but any disguise wouldn't hinder him to find her.

His Space Heart was enough. And he was confident that he could still manage even if the word 'Space' would be omitted.

Humming to himself, he raised the clipboard to eye level and stared at the invitation to the masquerade ball that Relena had just sent him hours prior to Dorothy's arrival. Relena had warned him about a 'surprise package' that would arrive after the invitation. At first he thought it must have been business related or just a friendly gift, and he was surprised when Abdul told him that a 'lost princess' was waiting for him in the middle of the dangerous construction site. The word 'princess' would have been connected to Relena, though he was doubting that she would come here personally to deliver a package.

"_Master Quatre?" Abdul had asked with a sly grin as Quatre motioned to excuse himself and meet the 'princess'. "Let me guess your favorite fairytale."_

_Quatre had raised a brow. Did he even like fairytales? And did Abdul have just said someone's waiting for him? What's with the talking?_

_Abdul had laughed. "Rapunzel, right?"_

_He'd flinched. "What?"_

"_Come on, master Quatre. I know you like Rapunzel. Otherwise you wouldn't have picked her as your girl."_

_Girl? Quatre was confused. He saw Rashid's amused face in his peripheral vision. "What are you talking about?"_

_Abdul had rolled his eyes. "Rapunzel, master. The princess with the long, long blonde hair."_

_Quatre's lips twitched in a small frown. "I don't get it."_

"_Who's it, Abdul?" came Rashid's booming voice. Quatre and Abdul looked up at him._

_Abdul had scratched his head underneath the fez, realizing that his little teasing didn't work. He'd turned to Quatre with a goofy smile. _

"_Miss Dorothy Catalonia."_

_The name rooted Quatre's feet to the ground. A heartbeat later, without another word, he quickly turned on his heels and half-run to find his fairytale goddess._

He smiled sheepishly at the memory, but it vanished quickly when he recalled the blind date. Relena had informed him that Dorothy had refused talking to her after the set-up. The honey blonde brushed away his apologies and assured him that it was nothing serious, that Dorothy would sooner or later go back to normal.

Quatre often wonders where Relena got spare time to trouble herself to play cupid between him and Dorothy. He knew she was too busy even to have time for herself, and for that he was ashamed. He hadn't even stopped his nightly phone calls…

"I think it's a little inappropriate to set up a tryst in a construction site. It's a good camouflage, though."

Quatre looked up to meet Rashid's eyes. He frowned at the giant man.

"It's not a tryst. She just forwarded a message from Miss Relena."

"Is that message too classified that a big business icon had to come here herself?"

"Yes," Quatre lied, shifting his eyes back to the invitation, his index and middle finger crossed beneath the clipboard. "Way too classified."

"Will it hurt to know a little of it?"

The boy blinked. It was the first time Rashid pried into something that he'd just declared 'secret'. Quatre knew the captain didn't believe him. Quatre felt as though the giant was aware that he...has a _big crush _on Dorothy. He sought for an appropriate answer, then found something that wasn't entirely a lie. He gave him a wink. "Of course not, Rashid."

"What was it about?"

He innocently showed him a sweet smile.

"Clouds," he said.

* * *


	6. Chapter 5: Of Shadows

**Disclaimer: **Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

* * *

**"Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**Chapter 4:** Of Shadows and Wrong Assumptions

* * *

"_Jealousy is the tie that binds, and binds, and binds."_-Helen Rowland

* * *

The faint sheen of her lips beneath the meager shadow of her mardi gras mask was luscious. She twisted her mouth into a leer that intensified her features, and upon stepping into the ballroom, she seemed to have defied all the other laws of nature as attention was magnetized towards her and breaths were held in.

Even though they wore masks, she could see the awe in their half-shadowed—and in some cases, half-lidded—eyes.

She was both hated and loved. Her powerful charisma and seemingly eternal exquisiteness was the main reason why she was nicknamed the enchantress by the majority of the public. The green-eyed female population had generally tagged her as a witch, lots of them picking on her trademark eyebrows. People spoke of her as a legend, a femme fatale pulled out from legends and dolled up to complement with the After Colony era.

The mask was useless, for apparently, everyone still knew she was Dorothy Catalonia. The large white feathers attached to it concealed almost half of her head where her hair was bunched up in a French twist. Noodle-like strands stubbornly spilled down to emphasize the shape of her face. Her one hand was elegantly folded around the golden stick that held the mask in place while her other hand was idly twiddling with the black cross pendant of the choker that hung from her ivory neck.

Her smirk grew. She was conscious that every masculine eyes present there were sailing over her figure, feasting on the snugness of her curves against the velvet gown, but she was too amused by her own thoughts to bother herself about that.

She knew that the place could have caught fire and she would continue laughing to herself. She left her choker to tuck an annoying strand behind her ear. Still twirling her fingers around the handle, she strode on and recalled what she had just done earlier.

* * *

Her escort had showed up early at her estate to pick her up. He seemed to be nervous when she accepted his arm, but it didn't mar his features. In fact, it made him look a little cuter with those slightly trembling lips and his ever-present blush. His jumpiness seemed to increase when they were already settled on the backseat of his Rolls Royce. Rashid, who according to Quatre had insisted on driving them to the Peacecraft mansion, kept glancing at the rearview mirror to look at them.

Quatre would bite his bottom lip after each nervous laugh and nonsensical blabbing that he irritatingly put on just for the sake that no uncomfortable silence would come between them. He would rake his hair with his fingers and sometimes would secretly throw sideways glances at her when he thought she wasn't watching.

She'd wondered what the matter was now. The last time they saw each other he seemed to be just okay; he was even so confident to assume she'd already agreed to let him be her escort even if she didn't make any utterance in response to his offer. He was so terribly jittery that he almost shrieked when their hands accidentally touched on the leather seat.

It irritated her to no end. What the hell was his problem? She wouldn't gainsay the fact that she herself was a bit tense—her heart marching away with that drumbeat that was the theme song whenever he was around—but not to the extent that she would go paranoid. She huffed and stared outside the window, counting inwardly to keep herself calm…

She was close to giving up when she realized that she couldn't. That's when she was hit with a completely mischievous idea.

Angry? No. Excited was actually the right term, but she wouldn't show him that she had something up her sleeve.

"Uh, Quatre dear?" she'd asked in a seductive breath, snaking her arm around his. He'd stiffened at the contact, and probably also at the endearment, and smothered whatever pathetic reaction his system would supposedly draw out his mouth.

"Hmmm?" he'd asked in reply instead, teeth digging onto his lip. Dorothy had felt how he was gently attempting to tug his arm away. She'd tightened the hold.

"I'm just wondering," she'd grasped a handful of his collar and started to pull at it, "if ever you've really healed," and drew him closer, despite the pinch of embarrassment that she'd felt when the act reminded her of their first meeting after the war, "from the wound that I gave you."

Dorothy had flinched inwardly at her last words. She was terribly sorry for that, and if possible, she wouldn't bring that subject back up when he was around. But she needed it now to accomplish her little evil scheme. It wouldn't be successful if she let her emotions rule over her.

Quatre had actually gulped, never once suspecting that this was some sort of trap. The little pink stains on his cheeks bloomed into magenta-colored flowers. "O-of course. It did leave a scar, but it didn't hurt anymore."

She'd arched one brow, lazy fingers fumbling to loosen the ribbon at his neck. "Really?"

The blonde boy had been shocked when the ribbon disconnected from his tux. He'd gasped and pulled away, but Dorothy wouldn't let him ruin her little enjoyment that minute. She'd disentangled her arm from his and looped it around his neck.

"I don't believe what I don't see," had been her words that widened the already wide eyes of her poor cupid. She giggled inches from his face, and proceeded to undo his first button.

"D-Dorothy—"

She'd laughed at his bland efforts of pushing her away. That was the main disadvantage of being too much of a gentleman—you couldn't use much force when it comes to a lady. Dorothy wasn't exactly sure if that applies to her, not ignoring the fact that this boy knew she wasn't an average lady. But apparently it does, in Quatre's poor case.

The giant driver had tried to interfere. His big hand had peeled off from the steering wheel to jostle the blonde away from his young master, but one deadly glare from her and a warning look from Quatre had stopped whatever he planned on doing. Quatre's reaction suggested that Rashid must have planned something that contained a little violence.

The blonde Arab had caught her wrists when her hands fell on the last button.

"It's not proper," he'd said firmly. Amused, she'd looked at his face that held newfound confidence. So the shaky Quatre was finally gone…

A smirk had touched her lips. "Don't try to tell me what's proper and what's not," and with that, she'd jerked his hands away and continued to undo the button.

Quatre had sighed tiredly, hands held up in mock defeat. She'd smiled devilishly in approval and wasted no second to lift his shirt and undershirt. For a moment she'd just stared at the scar. It was a bit shorter than her thumb, its coloring a bit paler than its surrounding buttermilk skin. Remorse washed over her; she was sure she'd grimaced. Quatre must have noticed this, because he'd shifted on his seat in an effort to gently slide away from her grasp. But she'd held on, eyebrows gathered.

'Head over emotions, head over emotions,' she'd told herself over and over again. Her strong will won.

When she was sure she wouldn't give away any weak response to whatever she wanted to do, she'd run a finger over the slightly embossed mark. Quatre had shuddered at the touch but hadn't tried to squirm away, positively engrossed on what she was doing—or probably, what she was thinking. She'd felt his stare on her and she was sure he was trying to infiltrate into her thoughts again.

Then the part she'd imagined in her head arrived. She'd curled her lips in a copy of his one-sided smile before sliding her hands to his sides. His intake of breath was audibly satisfying to her. She leaned nearer and nearer while he pushed himself deeper and deeper into the seat, his large pupils widening a little more so that his sclera was almost invisible. Confusion, tinged with disapproval, could be read in those eyes.

She'd touched her nose to his and angled her head in a way as if she was going to kiss him. A sensation of triumph lingered in her when Quatre scrunched his eyes close.

An inward laugh. She pushed the idea away, but she couldn't help but think about it: he'd looked as though he'd thought that she would_ really_ kiss him!

Oh yeah, like she was going to repeat that biggest mistake in her life.

She'd snickered.

"Quatre," she'd breathed to his mouth, to which the other blonde had given no answer. "I've got one sincere opinion that you ought to know."

The Arab didn't move, but one eyebrow had twitched. Dorothy amusedly put her lips centimeters away from his ear. Oh, she'd liked to see his reaction to this.

"Ever heard of working out? I think your baby fat wouldn't be shed without a little help from you."

The little barb had plowed in at once. He'd flipped his eyes open and stifled something that had half-escaped his lips—a groan. Of disappointment because it wasn't a kiss or because of the gibe itself, Dorothy didn't know, but she speculated that it was because of both.

She had detached her hands from his sides and placed them to cup his cheeks.

"Not that I'm saying you didn't look good with them," she'd explained nonchalantly, thumbing the portion of his cheeks that were the reddest. "If not for them, I personally think that you wouldn't look as cute as you are now. Only this time I think it's time to say goodbye to childish tubbiness. If I haven't seen the successful heir of Winner empire before, hell would freeze over before I'd believe that you're him."

They'd fallen silent after those words. It was Rashid's booming laughter that had broken the hush. Quatre, obviously controlling himself not to jerk her hands away from his face, pried her fingers with the gentlest force he had. Dorothy had bitten back her giggle when he pouted.

"I don't see anything funny, Rashid," he'd gloomily remarked.

Dorothy had triumphantly held her chin up, and Rashid had to smother his next laugh if he didn't want the boy to turn the whole corps against him.

After that, the car had gone thick with held-in laughter neither Dorothy nor Rashid dared make, as apparently the embarrassed multi-billionaire was completely absorbed in his own presumably not-so-nice thoughts, muttering something under his breath. They'd reached the mansion in no time.

"At least Miss Catalonia found you cute, Master Quatre," Rashid had commented, eyes bouncing from the rear view mirror to his pockets as he dug in for the keys.

"Read between the lines," had been Quatre's bitter reply, said in a fashion as if Dorothy wasn't there. "It wasn't a compliment, it's sarcastic."

"I believe it's an honest statement," the giant had countered. "The Maguanacs shared the same opinion."

Dorothy had twirled one finger around one stray strand as she listened to how the other occupants pretended that she was invisible. She permitted herself a short chuckle.

Quatre had heard her insulting little showcase of enjoyment and continued to ignore her. "That I'm cute? I'm sorry, but I can't force myself to feel flattered."

"No, not that. We think that you need to go to the gym every once in a while."

The peal of chuckles Dorothy had hoarded in her throat had spilled out at that comeback. She'd tapped Rashid playfully on his shoulder and waved haughtily, deciding that she would go ahead while her escort put himself back together. She'd slammed the door shut in his face when he motioned to complain, sauntering proudly towards her best friend's mansion.

* * *

She blinked twice, still laughing at the memory. The present came slowly into focus. She caught some of the people there still staring at her and her frosty eyes prompted them to look away.

"Dorothy," came a soft call from her back.

She didn't need to turn around to know who it was. "Remember, I'm mad at you. It's bad enough that I have to attend this stupid ball of yours, and I'm being escorted by that brat to boot. I do not wish to engage in any kind of conversation with you."

"You actually are now," the honey-blonde happily answered, gracefully stepping in front of the angry woman. "But I don't see your escort with you. Where's Quatre?"

Relena was beautiful as always. Her hair was elegantly curled at the ends, hanging loose over her skin exposed by her off-shoulder gown. The ever-present aura of royalty was lingering around her, intensely bright tonight, and she was practically glowing. Dorothy noticed a light tinge of pink on her cheeks that wasn't caused by the make-up. It left her wondering if the elusive Heero Yuy was actually at the ball. The mask Relena wore glittered with sequins, but the brightness of her blue eyes beneath it was far more luminous.

Dorothy shrugged innocently. "Gone to fix his tux, I think."

Relena arched one delicate brow. "What? What happened? Or…I think the better question should be—what did you do?"

Dorothy shot her an improvised incredulous look. "_What did I do_? I can't chew his expensive tuxedo off. Dogs can."

She laughed when Relena's jaw dropped. "D-dogs? Is Quatre alright?"

She'd thought to add another lie, but both of them turned to the entrance to see the blonde in question striding in. He was wearing a black mask now and his paces were uncharacteristically languid.

"Dogs over a former Gundam pilot? Wasn't that idea absurd?" Dorothy patronizingly stated. Relena smiled at the implication.

"Yes, yes, I know. Now you better get to Quatre before he decides to go home," she said, her eyes following the boy who went straight to the balcony. "Lately, I'm noticing that he's quite uncomfortable in attending parties. He always seems to be nervous but I don't know why. He leaves early and he certainly would if he wouldn't see you right away."

Dorothy mused over the statement. Always nervous? She brushed it off and chose not to worry herself over unimportant things. "Miss Relena, I don't know why you keep on putting us together every chance you get. Now, if he gets homesick right at this very minute, I wouldn't bother following him or stopping him. I also don't think that my presence could crutch him away from his nervousness. He's free to go wherever and whenever he liked, with or without me."

Relena sighed. "Dorothy, quit that attitude already and find him. You know it's hard to play hide-and-seek in a masquerade ball. And as to why I kept playing cupid over you two, well, the reasons are mine alone."

Dorothy opened her mouth for a witty response, but Relena beat her to it. "Speaking of cupid, how's our little god? When will I meet him? Does he look better than Quatre?"

She cringed at the last question. What's with this girl? Weren't the Earth and colonies' problems enough to tire her head? If she was trying to help by barging into her love life, Dorothy didn't like it one bit.

"He's well, I think," she answered coolly. "The last time I saw him, though, he was undeniably pissed off with me." She inserted a chuckle, hesitating only for the briefest moment before she decided to answer one of the last two questions. "And I don't think you should meet him."

Relena gaped. "Why not? I'm your best friend! And wait—are you two dating? I mean, you're meeting each other, and does that mean that Quatre doesn't have a chance—"

"Excuse me, Miss Relena, but I think you're right. I should approach my escort now." She vaguely waved a hand and left the vice foreign minister with a smothered sigh that would have indicated the amount of impatience with the topic she had at the moment. Relena didn't try to stop her.

The clacks of her heels set a rhythm as she walked towards the open door leading to the balcony. She idly wondered why Quatre would go straight towards the balcony without even looking around to find her, barely noticing the people who once again turned their heads to acknowledge her powerful presence. She directed predatory smiles to the men who greeted her, and before she stepped out, the smiles were twisted into a sour sneer. Are all males the same? Always seeking pleasure by ogling every shapely figure that would pass them?

A small voice in her head answered that there were definitely some exemptions. One of them would be, hopefully, the one she was looking for right now. She darted her head from side to side, only greeted at first by shadows cast by the clouds drifting over the moon. She lowered the mask from her face and shook off the sneer and replaced it with a frown. She was positive he trudged straight here…

Then she heard a boyish sigh, followed by the sounds of tickled laughter—which, to Dorothy's surprise, were feminine. The noises continued and she followed them, curiosity brimming in her chest.

What she saw made her feel as if the passageway of air in her system had been permanently clogged.

Roofed by the slightly moving shade of the large clouds, Quatre was leaning against the railing, his hair disheveled and tux ribbon still not in place, moaning and sighing against the lips of a brunette woman in his arms. The kiss looked messy, but the woman was enjoying it, obvious in her giggles that were muffled by his attacking lips.

For a moment, she was rooted to her position. God, what would she do? Would the same shadow that towered over the couple be enough to hide her? Why couldn't she move her legs? She knew she ought to turn away now, but she simply couldn't. Her fingers coiled around the mask handle in a death grip while her other hand balled up into a tight fist, a small portion of her velvet dress trapped in it. Her heart drummed painfully again, so intense that she thought it would break out of her rib cage. She almost wished it would.

Then her eyes stung. A prickly wet feeling touched them, and before she knew it, tears were flooding down her cheeks. She quickly let go of her gown to cup her mouth when a sob threatened to escape her mouth. She tightly squeezed her eyes shut, but the image before her still glowed even behind her eyelids.

"Dorothy Catalonia?"

Her eyes flicked open at the dimly familiar voice, and for a second her attention was drawn away from the kissing couple in front of her. She wiped the tears dry with a trembling hand before she turned around, sugarcoating the hurt with a smile. The emerald green eyes of the man in front of her shifted from her face to the passionate exchange between his friend and that woman. They narrowed before they swung back to her face.

"Trowa Barton," her voice croaked and she had to cuss under her breath. "It's been a long time."

The tall man cocked a nod, face deadpan as ever. He took one short glimpse at the couple again before he spoke. "Just so you know, Quatre's looking for you. He's waiting at the punch table."

_What?_

She pulled her eyebrows together at his news. Completely confused, she slowly turned her head back to the pair. The two had separated already and the shadow was gone. The tightness in her chest faded away and fresh air cascaded to her lungs when she realized that the man wasn't Quatre at all. His hair, which was a darker blonde, was a bit longer at the back. Though he has the same complexion as the Arab, his physique was more muscular. He does resemble Quatre from afar or under shade—counting the fact that they were wearing tuxes of the same color—but they were utterly different in any other aspect.

She felt the hot surge of blood to her cheeks at the realization.

Trowa discreetly cleared his throat to arrest her attention. She refused to face him just yet, willing the blush to disappear, but she figured it would take a long while for that to happen. Relenting, she faced him coyly.

The couple quietly walked back into the ballroom in almost the same way children would behave when caught with the candies they stole. So that left her and Trowa alone.

The unpleasant mix of emotions in her irritated her. The shame was there; she was sure that Trowa had noticed the similarity between the man and Quatre, and he had witnessed how she attempted to display her naturally sarcastic self even if her tear-laden eyes betrayed her as she turned her back to the sight. It was a good thing that his countenance held no amusement or anything, but she couldn't help but believe that he knew she'd gone jealous.

Her inner nagging voice was screaming at her as well. As far as she could remember, she had never been jealous of anybody or anything until now.

Then there was this distinctive feeling of meshed fear and admiration. It was real that she was standing face to face with Trowa Barton now. Back during the night that changed her life, he had pierced her with an insult of being a woman who couldn't weep. The taunt had hurt deeply and been buried deep within her ever since. It was actually like a grave; the words were settled beneath the earth, but the ghost was haunting her, to slap her on the face until she could prove that it wasn't true.

The problem was, when she let loose the floodgates, she couldn't control the gush anymore when it comes.

"What are you doing here?" Trowa cut through her thoughts. "Quatre thought you actually ditched the ball."

She bitterly permitted herself a chuckle. "I'm just getting some fresh air. I felt the need to clear my headspace."

Trowa gave a serene smile to that. He knew she was bluffing.

"You haven't changed that much," he said.

"As if you've known me well before," she retorted.

He took three paces towards her and offered her his arm, and though hesitant at first, she accepted without another word.

* * *

Quatre let his eyes roam around the room but there was no sign of Dorothy. He felt his brow getting slick with sweat under his mask. The jibe she gave him back in the car was still raw. Yes, he took a childish offense to it, and by that he allowed her to have the delight she obviously wanted. Right now, however, that wasn't important. He just wanted to know that she hadn't really run away from him again like she did during their first meeting after the war.

"Quatre?"

He snapped his head towards the voice and beamed warmly. "Miss Relena."

The glowing vice foreign minister returned his friendly gesture. She took her place next to him and sipped her wine. "I thought you're to escort Dorothy? Why did she arrive here alone?"

Quatre's smile faltered for a while, but when it came back it was far wider and hopeful. "So she's here?"

"Indeed," Relena answered immediately. She majestically took another sip from her glass and ran her eyes over his somewhat crumpled tuxedo. "And she'd implied that you'd been some kind of a chew toy for the dogs. Only I don't see any serious damage to your clothing…never heard of toothless canines, though…"

"What? I've been a _what?_"

Relena snickered. "Dorothy told me you're fixing your tux so you were going to arrive a little later. She said you got into trouble with the dogs."

He incredulously looked at the former queen and uttered a mirthless laugh. "No, not dogs, Miss Relena. One big bad wolf and a small sly fox, not dogs. They thought I look…_healthy_, they're feeling a little…hungry of sorts, and they tried to tear my clothing."

Relena looked lost.

"It's was the fox's idea at first," he pouted at the statement, "then my friendly wolf turned against me."

Relena was giving him a funny 'what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about' expression. Quatre couldn't help but laugh at that. "Never mind," he managed between hearty chuckles.

The honey-blonde shrugged in defeat. "At least they didn't inflict much damage to you. Anyway, I assume you haven't met Dorothy here yet? I thought she left to follow you to the balcony."

"Balcony? I've never been there. I just entered a few minutes ago. I bumped into Trowa, and he must have noticed my worry so he decided to help me. He said he'll find Dorothy. That's so typical of him, always wanting to help me even if the situation calls for a happy reunion…"

"But we thought…" she swung her confused sight at the open door leading to one of the balconies, breathed in as if readying to ask another batch of questions, then sighed. "I must be seeing and hearing things lately."

Quatre smiled silently.

"Anyway," Relena tossed her hair over her shoulder, "I don't think I should inform you of this at the moment because we're meant to enjoy the ball…"

He waited expectantly. It must be important, noticing that she shifted from a somewhat light tone to a serious one.

Relena's eyes brimmed with meaning, only he didn't get what they wanted to say, so she spoke up again. "But I think the sooner you know this, the better. Has Dorothy ever told you that she's meeting—if not really dating—somebody?"

The words were carefully laid out, but the meaning violently dug into his chest like a cold shovel. "N-no, she hasn't told me anything like that..."

Was she telling him that the sooner he knew he didn't have a chance, the better because it wouldn't prolong the hurt? He never expected that Dorothy…

Relena watched him warily. "I think she's quite fond of him, even if there were times in the past that he'd kind of hurt her. Dorothy sounded like a masochist when she told me their story. One minute she said she couldn't hurt him anymore—yes, there's an _anymore_, so I think they do fight sometimes—and then she's blushing when she mentioned him in the next."

Quatre trembled. "S-since when…"

"Dorothy told me about it the first time on.." she hesitated, then gave in. "on the same day you blind dated, minutes before you met."

His eyes widen. The throbbing pain was getting more intense. "You should have told me right then and there. I could always back out, you know. Dorothy didn't know she was going to meet me anyway…"

"I'm sorry," Relena readily apologized, "But I can't do that. Dorothy never told me that this person was special to her, so I just have to take chances. They're not a couple, she'd implied that more than once, and she never tried to mean that she's got feelings for that man. And you might wonder why, after I learned that, I still set you two up for this ball."

She batted her eyelashes as she emptied her wineglass. "I don't know if it's only me, but I think I saw something mysterious lighting up in her eyes when I mentioned your name back after she visited me in Brussels. That's also the first time I saw her smile a genuine smile, not her usual smirk that held sarcasm. I don't know what happened during your blind date, but I assumed whatever took place there was a good thing. Remember, she even agreed to me when I sent her to personally invite you to this ball."

If that was supposed to make him feel better, it didn't work. "Who's the man?"

A noticeable slumping of Relena's shoulder caught his eyes. "She never told me his name. She gave him a codename, though. Cupid."

"Cupid?" he asked so low that she barely heard it.

"I'll tell you about the other details later," she quickly spoke when he motioned to ask another question. "Dorothy's coming."

He followed her gaze. Trowa and Dorothy were approaching them.

"Don't think too much about Cupid," Relena muttered, placing her mask back and tapping him on the shoulder. "Dorothy likes you, and I'm not saying this to make you feel better. She really does, I can see it."

With that, she swished away from him to blend with the crowd.

"Good evening, Mr. Winner," Dorothy greeted mockingly, detaching her arm from Trowa's. She curtsied.

Quatre just stared, silently thankful that he was wearing a mask to somewhat cover his eyes. If not for it, they would have seen the extreme jealousy that was writhing in the blue-green depths.

* * *

Beta-read by: _Chibi Rose Angel._


	7. Chapter 6: Somewhere Between

**Disclaimer: **Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

* * *

**"Scissored Kismets"**

_by Schizoid Sprite_

**CHAPTER 6: **Somewhere between Unsure and a Hundred

* * *

_"A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections."_ -George Elliot

* * *

"You've been out shutterbuggin' again?"

She didn't look up when he spoke but he didn't miss the darkening of the gunmetal gray of her eyes with the aid of the scanty light from the LCD of her camera. She continued pressing, the creases on her brow deepening on each shot that she studied.

"Very ordinary," she exhaled her own criticism bitterly. "None of them fit for being the frontispiece. No bonus again. "

"It's just freelance. Good thing you didn't choose to quit your day job."

She arched a pale brow at his mocking comment and feigned hurt in her wet pout. "Nice thing to say to cheer up a friend, huh?"

"I make it a point to never tell a lie, sweetness," he said with a feral grin. "Now, lemme see the shots."

She gingerly detached the ancient DSLR from her neck and handed it to him, eyes nearly narrowing to slits. He accepted the device and chose to ignore the way she appeared as if she wanted to say something. She would confess later anyway.

The first photograph showed the vice foreign minister. Her smiling eyes, unhindered by the shadows of the mask, were a dead giveaway that she was enjoying the night. He let his eyes roam and spotted the nearest man to her—the last man he thought to attend such a gathering—and simpered smugly. Well, if it weren't for his tossed brown hair, he wouldn't have recognized him. It was strange to see Heero donned in a tux and a glittery black mask, as he had only seen him in some sort of green and black rags and bad yellow sneakers. The new outfit didn't make him appear more civilized, though; he looked more like a man fixed up for an emergency event after being chucked out of a time machine.

Faces of unfamiliar politicians came after that, and he passed on them a little faster. He was stopping whenever he sees anyone blonde in hopes to catch Quatre. His first stop was of a woman, so he went on to the next—and went back again when he caught a glimpse of a familiar face.

"Trowa," he breathed. The tall man wasn't wearing any sort of mask, but that could be justified by his waterfall of hair. The blonde on Trowa's arm wasn't ringing any bell. He pressed on to the next picture, which was of Quatre, with Trowa and the same woman.

"Hey Brookie," he called, blindly waving for his photographer friend to come to him. Brooke emerged from the opposite side.

"What? Oh, that picture. I don't know him either."

"Actually, it's _her_ that I can't recognize."

"You mean Dorothy Catalonia?" She gaped incredulously. "Is that the effect of too much exposure to radioactive space debris or of long-term incarceration in a scrap vessel? Her face is everywhere, especially—"

"Oh, a politician then," he interrupted. "I find space debris and scrap satellites more interesting than their garbage, really."

He began scanning the next images lazily.

"She's more of a businesswoman actually, and the garbage you're talking about is where I get extra income so don't sound like politics is the worst thing on Earth."

"Does it count when I say it's the worst thing on the colonies?"

She gave him a playful slap on the arm and snatched the camera back. "Wait…do you know that other guy?"

"You mean Trowa Barton?" he asked tauntingly. She stopped her frantic pushing on the 'next' button and snapped her head up, and he could almost hear her mind repeat the name. "Is that the effect of too much thinking about money or of long-term depression for a failed paparazzi career?"

She instinctively motioned to throw her camera at him and caught herself just in time. There was no way he was going to spill a lot of information about the other ex-Gundam pilot, he decided when an odd light crept upon her face.

"He's Quatre's friend," he economized the answer when her eyes questioned him.

"_Quatre._ On a first name basis, huh?"

He just shrugged. "You know Brookie, you can just work full-time for the Sweepers. I have a feeling that you're going to try journalism."

"I can't see any problem in that."

"Well, I can," he cheerfully said. "I might be a space scavenger, but I still care for the field—if I can prevent you from marring its name, I will. After all, it's the media that is the number one adversary of politics."

"Some press people accept under-the-table payments."

"Yes, _some_. The rest are not like you."

"Hey," Brooke called at his retreating form, remembering something. "I've heard that a friend of the VFM…a certain _Duo Maxwell_…wasn't able to attend. Perhaps you know him?"

"You do. I do too, but then I really don't."

* * *

"When the flyer swings to his lowest point, gravity accelerates him to his maximum speed—therefore it is his maximum kinetic energy and his lowest potential energy. Assuming that the bottom of his swing is the point of reference for all the energy calculations—"

Quatre stopped in mid-speech when his chalked equations were brushed and covered by a steaming bowl of stew. He didn't look up, but he could feel the almost tangible irritation of the woman that was standing from across the table.

"I don't know what your problem is," Catherine spat, pushing a curl behind the shell of her ear. "But whatever it maybe, leave our table _alone_. Just so you know, that's one of the first things I purchased with my salary as a knife-thrower. Old and almost brittle, yes, but try to respect something that you can't replace. Then go get yourself a _real_ blackboard."

He stifled a sigh and apologetically fixed his eyes at the stub of chalk that he rolled on his palm. "Sorry."

She pulled a chair next to his and slumped down with exaggerated body language that translated to annoyance, muttering something under her breath that made the blonde feel a little sorrier. It was bad enough that she had to play host to him instead of performing for today's circus. He was definitely not helping with his cockeyed antics.

She pushed the bowl aside and peered at the slightly clouded writings he left on the wood.

"Are you into witchcraft or something? What are these, formula for love potions?"

Quatre let out a halfhearted laugh as she rubbed the equals sign between the PE and KE.

"Physics, Cathy," he said, looking straight at the wall, absently doodling something next to the last equation. "The trapeze act works like a simple pendulum. The artist is a mass on the end of an inextensible string, so the—"

He cut himself off when Catherine leaned closer and lowered her head towards the scribbles.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"That it works like a pendulum?"

"That they're not formula for love potions," Catherine said, arching one auburn brow as she stabbed her finger at the wood with a dull thud.

He hadn't written any numbers after the last equation but there were other figures. They were almost formless, but the little dent on the top of each and the zigzagging lines that halved them into two sections indicated them as hearts.

Broken hearts…

He didn't like the impish smile that suddenly appeared on her face.

Catherine crossed her legs and tilted her head so she looked like she was sizing up a billiard ball for a crack. "Tell me if I'm—"

"You're wrong," he interrupted instantaneously. He thumbed the figures to fuzzy stains and pulled the bowl on the top of it."Whatever you're thinking, just keep it to yourself. I don't need to hear it."

"Oh, come on, Quatre," she teased. "Heartbreaks are inevitable. They're a part of growing up. It's not the end of the world if a woman rejects you...and there are a lot of fish in the ocean."

Quatre ignored the last statement. "I don't believe that a woman rejected me."

"Translation—I don't want to accept the fact that the girl of my dreams doesn't like me."

"Catherine, I'm not here to serve as your verbal punching bag."

"As an emotional one, perhaps?"

"Cathy!"

She burst into convulsive giggles and threw her head back. "Fine then, I won't touch that topic anymore if that's what you want. But…is that why you want to talk to Trowa? I haven't seen him yet after he went to shower. Think he's still changing in his tent."

He scooped a spoonful of the soup and stared at it. "If I want to talk to Trowa, I don't have to 'vandalize' your furniture with Trapeze physics."

"What do you want then?"

"I want to learn how to fly."

"What?"

"The basics of Trapeze."

"_What_?!"

He enclosed his mouth over the spoon. Catherine's chair almost fell back when she stood up, incredulous.

"Quatre, if you plan to kill yourself just because you've been _dumped_, you can do it somewhere else!"

"I'm not—"

What he planned on saying was quickly effaced, as his whole attention was dragged to whatever he put in his mouth.

"W-what's _this_?" came his stifled voice from behind the hand he brought to cover his mouth. He was a bit surprised that the words were still slightly intelligible despite the tortured taste buds numbing his whole mouth.

Catherine raised an eyebrow at his trembling finger pointing to the soup. "Minestrone. It's my specialty."

Quatre's face went an unwholesome white.

"Any problem? It's Trowa's favorite."

"Maybe I should see Trowa now…You know, I'm not really hungry…"

For the first time in his life he thought about not going to the circus. _Ever_.

* * *

"You know that you don't have to come here. I won't tell Quatre anything about what I saw."

"I'm not here for that."

Dorothy braided her fingers with the strings of the rubber diabolo on his makeshift bed. She'd been casually playing with the juggling prop since she barged into his tent, and though she knew she looked like a simpleton who for the first time held a product of modern technology, the sharp feel of his eyes on her and his cold refusal to make her feel welcomed were downright pleasurable.

"Besides," she continued, "You saw nothing."

"Nothing?" Trowa's visible green eye narrowed. He pushed himself away from the metal post and faced her fully with crossed arms. "I saw your tears."

Yes he did. After he silently led her out of the balcony last night and transferred her to Quatre's arm, she felt a little drawn to him--a little more drawn that is, for she knew she'd been sort of 'intrigued' by him after the Libra incident. She wasn't aware what kind of relationship Trowa and Quatre had, but she was certain that the silent man was closer to the blonde than most people. That fact, and the other that he didn't tell Quatre anything about her showcase of jealousy in a completely wrong situation, seemed to have added to the unusual gravitation. Not that she didn't expect him to spill the beans sooner…but then, he'd said he would keep his mouth shut about the whole thing, just an instant ago. She had this feeling that Trowa wasn't one to break his words.

"They're just water," she blurted out. "Mr. Winner saw buckets of them before."

"So he said. But I believe the reason behind each drop is more intriguing and important than their number."

She aired a gulp of laugh as she pulled herself to a sitting position. She held the spool of the prop up to her eye level like a brightly colored goblet, as if calling for a toast. "I never expected that it would be you who I would be chatting with about tears, Mr. Barton. Reason equates to explanation, and the very water you're so engrossed about now doesn't entail anything but understanding—without using logic. There is no _reason_ for each drop."

"Because there's an _emotion_ in each of them?" he mused with a hint of disdain. "I can vaguely remember someone saying that love is the only rational act, yet no reason could ever be put beside it. That's why it's so hard to comprehend it."

"I don't understand why love gets into this," she said with pretended plaintiveness. Her eyes held a sarcastic smile. She was slowly realizing that she was a master of facades. Two layers over the true feeling inside her? Class act.

"Yes you do," he shot back before she could continue, as if his eyes sheared past those layers. "But discussing it with you isn't one of my tasks for today. Just state your real reason in coming here and then leave."

"Why, Mr. Barton," she let one leg dangle to the side of the bed as she spoke, "I just want to spend some time with an acquaintance from the good old days."

"We're less intimate than acquaintances."

"Am I still your enemy? The war's ended already Mr. Barton, move on. Oh, I think I'm overestimating Quatre's friends."

He made no answer.

"Won't you offer me anything? A drink maybe?" She plunged back to the bed, her eyes never leaving his.

"I don't entertain trespassers, especially a tart."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me."

"I don't believe I like the way you said that."

"I don't believe I care much."

He paced towards her with exaggerated slowness. When he reached the side of the bed, he clasped her wrist firmly and guided her up.

"Civilians are not allowed anywhere but in the big top. I'm sorry Miss Catalonia, but if I don't want to lose my job, I think I have to get rid of you."

She tugged her hand away from his. "Let's say I refuse…"

"I'll tell Quatre you're here to coax me on revealing to you his favorite movies."

"What?"

"What his favorite color is, where he hangs out during holidays, what kind of books he likes to read, if he likes chocolates. I'm going to tell Quatre you have a crush on him and you're cajoling me into setting you up for a one-night stand."

"That's…" She groped for a sharp rejoinder to hurl back at him, but she was at a total lost.

"That's what I'll tell him. I'll wager my salary for the whole month—he'll believe me."

She shakily tossed a handful of her hair to her shoulder. "No, he won't. I'll say it's you who're asking me about my favorites and forcing me to a date."

"Best friend versus stabbing nemesis? You're on."

With that, he roughly grabbed her arm and dragged her to a standing position. Dorothy gasped at the sudden rashness but she was more surprised to hear herself laughing. It was a tug-of-war, her arm the rope.

"Let me go you—ow!"

Trowa caught his breath when his foot slid on top of a stack of wooden stilts, causing him to lose his balance and fall down with a crash. Dorothy was also dragged down but she landed on top of him, giggling. Both of them didn't hear the crescendoing thuds of feet on the grass outside the tent, but a worried voice from behind the closed flap quickly silenced them.

"Trowa? What's happening in there?"

There was something in Trowa's reaction to the voice that excited the little demon on Dorothy's shoulder. She could almost feel it tugging at her ear to execute the little plan that bloomed in her head.

"Catherine?" she heard him ask. "Nothing, Cathy it's—"

She placed a hand on his mouth to cut him off. She winked at the questioning frown of his brow. "I'm sorry for the din, Miss Catherine," she bellowed.

"D-do you need anything?"

"Let's see how you get out of this, zero three," she exhaled to his ear. She cleared her throat before she yelled, "Maybe…some clean bed sheets?"

* * *

Outside, Catherine and Quatre mirrored each other's expressions—only she didn't stay long enough to notice that. He wasn't able to stop her when she spun on her heel and broke into a run because apparently, he couldn't get himself out of the temporary paralysis he was in.

_That voice…_

He watched, with his hands unconsciously clenching to his sides, how the flap was thrown open and how a perspiring Trowa hastily stepped out of the tent.

"Cath…Quatre?"

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for this chapter's being slow. Duo and an OC enters now, and I might say this indicates where the real plot starts (well, how's that? Six chapters of silly intro? Bwahaha!) To those who reviewed the last chapter, thanks for bearing with this messy fic. XD Truthfully, I've thought of another idea for a series involving Quatre and Dorothy that makes me want to abandon this one (heee!). On the second thought, I'll finish this one up before I start another. The idea can wait and I can still pour all my silly ideas.

Beta-read by: _Chibi Rose Angel_


	8. Chapter 7: Reconjunction

**Disclaimer:** Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

* * *

**"Scissored Kismets"**

_by Scizoid Sprite_

**CHAPTER 7:** Re-conjunction of Two Stars

_

* * *

_"If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky?" - _Stanislaw J. Lec _

* * *

Mariemaia Khushrenada held out one hand to catch a petal, the other cupped above her eyes in protection against the bits of 'sky' that showed between the gaps in the foliage. She focused on the blossom—a little hammock rocking side to side as it surrendered to the artificial gravity—and her pupils dilated ever so slightly until the almost weightless thing settled on her palm.

In the slowness of it all—of the petals' descent, of her growing up, of time as a whole—she wondered when everyone's wound would totally heal. The war was over, yes, but the bleeding wasn't. She still believes that time was a great deadener though, and she was taught that learning to wait, no matter how agonizing it seemed to be, was one of the best ways to grow up.

Has she learned it already? Her eyes fluttered close and the petal slipped away with the wind. Two nights and three hours have passed since her first encounter with her second cousin.

__

She was utterly bored that night, and aside from being a wallflower, her fiddling with the sequins and glitters of her mask attracted a lot of unwanted sideway glances and murmurs from other people. _What_, she thought snidely as she peeled off the mask's peacock feather, _can't you all believe that the despot-wannabee who waged a war not so long ago was just a child?_

Alright, she was moping. So what?

"Oh, what an adorable sight."

She turned her head up towards the direction of the voice. A whipping of blonde hair that was almost white under the lights, a stabbingly unnerving gaze, a smile where coldness and warmth were painted in perfect balance. She recognized her. She saw her on TV, newspapers, and old family pictures.

"Dorothy Catalonia," Mariemaia breathed, half a question and half a statement. In a second, she realized she was wrong—she has never seen her before. All the other one-dimensional images did not give Dorothy any justice.

"I guess it's really true that a blasé attitude towards these regular balls runs in our blood," said Dorothy, wide smile directed at the tortured mask.

"You don't look that bored," Mariemaia frowned. Dorothy wasn't bored, she was sure about that, but it didn't look like she was enjoying the night either. There was the slightest trace of tears that somewhat spread a little of her eyeliner and a natural faint pink stain was lingering beneath the blush-on she was wearing. She looked almost troubled. Mariemaia raised a brow in curiosity but she kept the questions at bay. With her hands still awash with glitters, she went back to destroying her mask.

"Not really," said the blonde when Mariemaia couldn't remember what she last said anymore. "Not now that I've finally met you."

Dorothy twirled the handle of her mask and sat down next to the redhead, sipping her champagne meticulously.

"What's so special about meeting me?"

"I think you amuse me."

Mariemaia narrowed her eyes. "Do I look like a clown?"

"Clowns don't amuse me."

"Despots do?"

A hum. "Not exactly, but being one does add a more comical ingredient to the whole thing."

She bristled. "_Comical_?"

She knotted her eyebrows together and readied a scathing comeback at that, but it vanished altogether when its supposed receiver aired a good-natured laugh. She froze at the sound, thinking that she had heard it before, just where or when she couldn't quite place. And then a pair of warm arms that swathed her made her gasp with surprise. It was exactly like the laugh…

"It feels like a memory," Mariemaia murmured her thoughts against the perfumed hug, her eyes fluttering close.

"You remember?"

"Remember what?" She smiled despite herself, inhaling the floral scent. Never did it occur to her that Dorothy could be this soft; the duchess that the books and papers talked about wasn't human at all. Cold, indifferent, a bullet with butterfly wings, a deceiver, flawed in some ways but expert in hiding a weak point…the list could go on and on, but it would be like they were just defining a fictional character and not her cousin at all.

"This." Dorothy tightened her hold. "You remember? Oh, of course not. You're just two when I last saw you in person."

"You saw me when I was two?"

"Just once, before Miss Barton took you back to L3."

"And you met my mother?" Mariemaia detached herself a tad grudgingly from the embrace. "You met her?"

"I did. But we never talked about anything, not even once."

Mariemaia looked at the spinning aristocrats at the dance floor, seeing nothing. "We never talked either. Not even once."

"You just don't remember."

"She died before I learned to understand what I'm saying. You're right, I just don't remember. I can't remember anything about her."

_Except that embrace_, Mariemaia realized, and she enclosed her arms around herself. Yes, that was it. If there was going to be a mother's hug, or the closest thing to a mother's hug, she knew it would certainly feel like the one that Dorothy gave her. It was a bit confusing; Une never embraced her before, but if the lady would, she doubted that it would have the same effect as Dorothy's. It felt like an old memory. She wanted to feel it again.

Mariemaia lifted her arms slowly, twisted to face her cousin—and froze.

Dorothy wasn't paying any attention to her. There was a small convolution on the blonde's brow, her eyes seemed to be focusing on something from the dance floor; the flush of magenta that spilled across her face glowed like embers beneath her skin, and the overall look of her face unveiled another version of Dorothy that Mariemaia didn't know existed.

"What's the matter?" she asked, concerned.

"Can I have this dance—"

Mariemaia snapped her head towards the speaker, and gaped. Standing before her, facing her cousin in almost exaggerated princely stance, was the very counterpart of the icon she thought Dorothy really was: Quatre Raberba Winner.

"—Miss Khushrenada?" Quatre swiftly swirled, turning his laughing eyes, crooked smile, and an open hand towards Mariemaia.

The redhead, surprised, pushed a finger to her chest. "Me?"

Quatre nodded, and he took her hand and gently tugged at it, leading her to the dance floor. She looked back at Dorothy, who sported a semi-surprised expression that she concealed behind her mask.

While she danced with Quatre, she couldn't help but notice how his eyes repeatedly bounced back to where they left her cousin. She turned around once, and found Dorothy chatting with a man with green eyes and weird haircut—was that her_ 'uncle'_?

_There's something very funny going on here_…

__

"I don't know what kind of world you're in now, cousin," Mariemaia whispered to the wind as she refloated to the present. "But I just can't wait to see you again and be a part of it, one way or another."

She raised her cupped palm to catch another petal. She shifted her weight to her other leg.

"Too slow."

"Five centimeters per second," declared a voice from behind her. "They said that's the speed of cherry blossoms as they fall to the ground."

She craned her neck around. A gasp escaped her mouth when she saw who the speaker was, and she missed the petal she was waiting for, slipping between her fingers and onto the soft grass.

"Heero Yuy," she muttered.

* * *

"I used to take care of a dinosaur's egg when I was a kid," Dorothy shared playfully, flicking a blond lock away from her cheek, "and it hatched on the third day of its 'incubation'. Ditzzy—the baby dinosaur—is easily the cutest thing I've ever seen, and it's too bad she's all just pixels. If I have extra time I'll still secure virtual pets to take care of." She crossed and re-crossed her legs imperturbably when she didn't notice any kind of reaction from the young man. "I'm willing to have a v-pet software installed in your notebook if you like, Mr. Winner. Waiting for a chick to spring out of that darling little egg seems absurdly passé for my tastes, in terms of looking for a pet."

Quatre just offered a coy smile at that. "I thought you don't like imitations of imitations? Why virtual pets?"

"I can guarantee you that I'll never secure one anymore if someone can get a real dinosaur for me." Dorothy mirrored his expression mockingly before leaning over the table. She tilted her head to the side, looking at the lone egg as if it were a badly drawn figure in an off-kilter painting. "I'm not sure I see the point of informing me that this egg's days on earth are fewer than a half a score. I mean, I don't care if it's seventeen days old, and… did I just tell you that this is a date?"

_A chaperoned date_, Dorothy corrected herself mentally as Quatre gave a small nod. She saw in her peripheral vision how Ahmed—she was positive it was Ahmed, she remembered meeting him at the construction site at L3—pushed himself off the doorjamb to whisper something to his partner, a man with sunglasses whose name she couldn't recall at all.

"Yes," Quatre spoke as he listlessly prodded the egg. "And it's a surprise. You're actually the last woman I expected to ask me out on a date."

A pink stain spilled across his face after he said that and she smiled despite herself. She did ask him out. Crossing out the lower half of her meetings list that day was only one of the painfully difficult steps to do it; just rehearsing everything in her mind stole a large chunk of her sleeping time and required more spittle to push her pride down her throat. It was hard, considering that they set off on the wrong foot from the very moment they cross paths again after the wars. They made no progress whatsoever after that, not even reaching a place where a 'friendship' signpost was erected.

But thanks to that little sexual jape she carelessly 'broadcasted' at Barton's expense yesterday, Dorothy has to take a shortcut to reach the dating stage.

She wasn't aware that Quatre was also there at the circus, but even if she was, she couldn't find a rational enough explanation to be bothered by it. It indeed bothered her however, rattled her brain in a panic-stricken search for some kind of foolproof explanation. Barton didn't make anything that could help her; he was the one who actually convinced her to explain herself to Quatre. Explain _herself_. She didn't know what for—she told herself she didn't know what _exactly_ for—but after hearing Barton's brutal version of blarney, she knew she was left with no other option.

After all, it was because of her that Barton would be washing his own bed sheets, costumes, and anything that should be cleaned after use, from now on. The man must have realized by now that an angered sibling equates to additional responsibilities.

"I'm always the unpredictable one," Dorothy said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "But I'm afraid I don't want to discuss anything about that any further. What about dinner?"

"We're actually discussing dinner the instant we sat here."

Quatre pointed at the egg.

"Hardboiled chicken egg for dinner?"

"It's a seventeen-day-old duck's egg and it's not hardboiled."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "So? Mr. Winner, I've eaten thousand-day-old duck's eggs before that are not hardboiled. You're not actually planning to starve me tonight, are you?"

"Of course not, Miss Dorothy. This is different."

There was something in Quatre's voice when he said the word 'different' that made a possible tastebud disaster ghost across her mind. She watched as he reached for the egg and tapped its pointy tip against the edge of the table.

"Here," Quatre offered. "Imagine it as your regular cup of Earl Grey—tip it up and drink its broth."

She cupped the egg with both hands and peeked cynically into the small crack. Broth?

"It's an Asian delicacy," Quatre explained. "The Maguanacs told me it's a common streetfood in some parts of L4, available especially during the scheduled colony winter. I don't think you'll find it common, though, and some first-time eaters find it rather unpleasant. I'm one of them but I eventually warmed up to the food."

Dorothy flipped through the mental images of her gourmet adventures on Earth, zeroing in on the ones she encountered in Asia. No plain egg recipes in it.

"I just thought about making this night remarkable," Quatre flashed a one-sided smile, ducking his head sheepishly. "And it all starts with what we eat. I'm giving you the privilege to do whatever you want to me if you don't like it."

She raised a brow. "You sound like you're certain I won't like it."

He shrugged. "Duo swore he won't attend any benefit parties I organize again after I made him eat that in one such event. It triggered almost the same reactions from the others."

"Well," Dorothy smiled nefariously, "I'm not Mr. Maxwell and the others."

She tilted her head back slightly and took a small swig from the egg, the shell hard on her lips. The 'soup' was warm, somewhat saline with light sweetness.

"It's good," she said at his expectant face, taking another drink. Quatre cocked a nod and took the egg from her, then flipped out a sizable patch of the brittle shell. She accepted it when he hesitantly gave it back to her, peeped at the now larger crack, and what she saw pushed her back against her chair.

Quatre caught the egg when it rolled away from her hands. He was carefully not looking at her reaction as he went on peeling it. In less than a minute, the whole thing was exposed.

"Seventeen days old," he said in a low voice.

As if she even needed that information.

Her gag reflex moved in spasms. It sure was a duck's egg, and the duckling—half-formed with a head, bill, and wings—was curled up against some yellowy mass inside the cradle-like shell. To Dorothy it looked like a tiny beast in repose, and some of the macabre scenes from the last zombie movie she saw flooded and clogged every corner of her skull. Picturing herself eating it, she suddenly felt like she belonged to those anthropophagites.

Oh, sure, this wasn't human flesh, but the level of repugnance it inspired was the same—it was the worst exotic…no, exotic's not the right term, but _taboo_—taboo food that she ever laid her eyes on.

The nectarous taste of the broth was still on her tongue. Her stomach pitchpoled.

…did she just drink its _amniotic fluid_?

"That," she managed, suddenly not having any strength to add some vitriol to it, "is simply the most remarkable way to scare my appetite away. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I can still make it to the washroom before I…"

She was gone from the table before she even finished her statement.

Quatre cast a troubled look at the Maguanacs.

"Don't worry, Master Quatre," Abdul said with a smirk, "If we won't be able to protect you this time, I think you're strong enough to live through another stab wound."

_Very encouraging_, Quatre thought with a heavy sigh.

* * *

Circus.

Brooke found it funny to imagine no bursting colors or roaring laughter whenever someone mentions that word. She went to a circus once when she was still a kid, but she couldn't remember anything about it that could make her smile. Instead, the images that would appear were the slush of mud under her boots, the dead shades of camouflage, bloodstains on her apron…

She angled her SLR vertically, aimed at the structural swirl of rainbow-colored flags festooning the whole tent. If she learned how to operate a camera before, she would have captured something that could be considered a remembrance of an ordinary childhood. She didn't have such a childhood though, and stealing a piece of something that squirmed away from her seemed fair enough—even if she would always emerge the loser no matter how she looked at it.

The happy din decrescendoed as her camera went on flashing, her feet shuffling away from the show. She warily looked around, then proceeded to the other parts of the tent where no other person seemed to have set a foot on.

It has gone a lot darker so she maneuvered the device to manual mode, twisting the small dial to adjust the aperture and shutter speed. She lifted the camera, and was a tad astonished to find a familiar man's face in the viewfinder.

"You," said the man, who lowered the laundry basket he was carrying at the same time she lowered her camera.

"You're…Trowa Barton?"

* * *

"You mean _rice_ wine."

Quatre shook his head, his full attention on the slightly shaking crane. "No, they call it baby _mice_ wine. The Chinese and Korean consider it a health tonic and even if Wufei doesn't believe it, he likes to imbibe a whole bottle just to get rid of ennui. He dared me to drink once when I paid Miss Noin a visit at the Preventer Headquarters. The sight of the little rodents fluttering at the bottom is enough to make your blood run cold. I tried it, though. It's as good as a hot cup of tea."

Dorothy felt her sweat-beaded forehead. "Weird little blokes."

"I'm very sorry about the egg," he said, looking at her over his shoulder with apologetic eyes. "I thought you'll like it. Miss Relena told me stories about some of your cuisine escapades on Earth."

_Oh, still taking advices and tips from Miss Relena?_

"Well," Dorothy chuckled, "I'm not adventurous enough to gobble down a single recipe from a cannibal's cookbook."

"It's not—"

"A little to the left," she instructed, placing her hand over his to stir the joystick to the right direction. "I'd like to have that dino plushie. She looks a lot like Ditzzy."

Quatre seemed to stiffen at her touch, and he pressed his other hand against the toy machine, leaning as if for support.

"You should've told me you want that one," Quatre said with light reproach. He sounded calm, but the slight hitch in his breathing could be easily noted.

"I really don't, but you've been targeting that white teddy bear for almost an hour now. Lady Luck might consider smiling at us if you aim for something else."

She propped an elbow on the plastic panel, shifting and pressing her side against Quatre while eyeing the trembling claw. She felt him shift too, and it was like he hesitated between inching away and pushing closer. A furtive smile tugged at her lips when he decided to go with the latter.

"Nothing happened yesterday," Dorothy muttered.

He caught what it was about in a jiffy. "I know."

"Why did you tear out then? I said whatever you heard in jest, and I'm never going to hook up with someone like Barton."

She felt the rumble of his smothered laughter. "What's so bad about Trowa?"

"Nothing that should interest you."

"I'm interested in anything about my friends."

"I'm not your friend."

Silence.

"It's about you?" It wasn't hard to tell that he was trying not to ponder further on her last statement.

"Yes."

He slowly slipped his hand off the joystick. Dorothy started when the claw halted, and she turned a questioning face towards her date.

"Mr. Winner?"

"Maybe I can just buy you a bigger Ditzzy somewhere else," he said in rather chapfallen tone he didn't bother concealing. "Lady Luck hates me."

"You think so?"

"I'm pretty sure about it."

"I can assure you that not all your hunches are always correct."

Quatre opened his mouth to retort, but Dorothy's warm hands that slid on either side of his face silenced him. She read the sudden confusion in his eyes, something that sent a triumphant feeling to sail across her stomach. Without any preamble, she stood on her toes and gently guided his head down.

Lady Luck loves her, there was no doubt about that, and Quatre's _not-so-Quatre_ retaliation was his way of telling her he wouldn't be trusting his hunches again, despite the fact that he was a very powerful empath.

* * *

**A/N:**

Sorry about the delay! Not so much of a progress here, but I need to put a little get-together between Quatre and Dorothy to be able to move on.

Here are some trivia:

1. _Five Centimeters Per Second_ is an animated movie.

2. How does the duck fetus egg get into this fic? In the Philippines, it's called a 'balut', a common streetfood. Tagalog is a language spoken in the Philippines; the word Maguanac is derived from the tagalog word 'Mag-anak', which means family, and the group itself is inspired by OFWs in Saudi Arabia. Bringing a Philippine delicacy to L4 is an idea I just can't resist, especially if I can picture Rashid enjoying it. (These details about the Maguanacs will play some important roles in the future)

I have requested another writer to make a 4xD ficcie with the prompt 'duck fetus egg', and while waiting to read her awesome take on it, I decided to try it myself. :)

Comments are appreciated and I'm in love with concrits. :)


	9. Chapter 8: Past and Future

**Disclaimer:** Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

**A/N**: NO I haven't abandoned ficcing--sorry for the super-late post! I should've updated this last Sunday when my beta sent me the edited fic, but I'm waaay to busy with my practicum at the moment. :D Thanks Kei-chan (aka The Orange Girl) for making this chap at least readable!  
This contains slight OOC, you've been warned! Will make it up to you next time LOL.

* * *

**"Scissored Kismets"**  
by Schizoid Sprite

**Chapter 8:** Past and Future

* * *

"In memory's telephoto lens, far objects are magnified." -John Updike

* * *

Mariemaia's forehead furrowed. She looked up again to watch the drop of the blossoms, those little fairytale cradles falling one, two, three, four, five centimeters per second, according to the slouched Japanese next to her. The bits of facile sunlight broke through the leaves like small spotlights, embellishing the simple spectacle. Too dreamlike, Mariemaia thought. She glanced down at her chocolate ice cream and found a petal settled on top of it.

"I didn't know it's not loaded," Heero said after a while.

Mariemaia cocked an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"The gun." Heero finally licked at the thawing mound on his own cone. "I was really planning to kill you then, at the Bunker in Brussels."

She blew at the petal, but it didn't move. "I don't really care. I mean, I was already shot before you appeared. I had thought I was ready to die."

"I'm sorry for the attempt to kill you," Heero said in earnest. "Or for my failure to accomplish it, whichever you think is more appropriate."

She chuckled. "Apology accepted for the first reason. If you had succeeded in eliminating me, then I wouldn't be having this date with you today."

"This is not a date, kid." The last word was weighted.

"I want it to be. I'm sure Miss Relena won't mind."

Mariemaia giggled at the sharp glare he gave her. They fell silent for a moment, fingers on cool grass and backs on the cherry tree trunk. Robins sang, and Mariemaia wondered if colonists make artificial animals too, instead of what her five-year-old self imagined—little birds in miniature space suits being delivered from Earth.

She smothered another giggle and ran a hand through her hair. In an environment with sounds and sights emitting a sense of cool tranquility, her mop of red hair signified rebellion and fire. _Or love_, she added to herself, a thing she was slowly loving to do while growing up.

She looked at Heero, quite astonished to see that he looked as though he was a natural part of this place. Yes, his hair and clothes were disheveled, but the peaceful expression of his face was perfect for the whole picture. Mariemaia thought of someone else, like Heero, that might not appear to be a part of a peaceful world at first glance, but is more deserving of it than anyone else.

"Do you know Dorothy Catalonia?"

Heero threw her a what-a-stupid-question look. "Is the sky blue? Is the sea deep? Do you know Dorothy Catalonia?"

"What I mean is, do you know her personally?"

He tilted his head to the side, eyes on the melting treat. "Aside from the fact that she used to stalk me when I was studying at the Sanq Kingdom…"

"Dream on, Heero Yuy," she laughed, loving his playful tone. "She wouldn't do such a thing."

"She did. Even took photographs."

"If you're trying to say something in jest, try _harder_," Mariemaia deadpanned, flicking the petal away from her ice cream. "You're not her type. Mr. Winner maybe, but not you."

"Quatre?"

She shrugged. "Just a feeling. They're both present at Miss Relena's ball last Friday. When she saw him, our Miss Iron butterfly had her wings clipped. No, really. I'll need blood transfusion to equal the blush under her mask." She licked the melted blob that raced down her fingers. "Actually, I thought those two were having some sort of love quarrel. Don't look at me like that; I know they're not even an item. Mr. Winner asked me to dance—three songs all in all—and never said a word to me. Mr. Social Skills, huh? His gaze kept drifting back to where my cousin was sitting. Do they have a history or something? I heard Mr. Winner also went to Miss Relena's Institute."

"I didn't pay so much attention to her during that time, but I know she's more interested in me than in Quatre."

Mariemaia rolled her eyes.

"I mean it." His eyes said the same thing. "Dorothy didn't seem to care so much about Quatre at that time. Quatre, on the other hand, was a bit drawn to her. I caught him twice muttering her name absently while we lounged around and waited for Noin's updates. And it's become a habit of him to stare moonily at her during fencing class. I wasn't certain about what he felt for her and I never asked, but I was relieved he found himself a distraction."

"Distraction?"

"Yes. One of the things I was thankful for when we decided to stay in Sank was that Dorothy was able to temporarily stop Quatre's barely tolerable self-loathing. It wasn't effective every minute, but it's better than letting Quatre bludgeon his conscience every chance he gets." When Mariemaia raised inquiring eyes, Heero added, with a millisecond-long note of hesitation: "He had thought he killed Trowa."

"Uncle?" Obviously there was something else he wasn't telling her, but she wasn't going to pry. Not now, at least.

"No. I'm talking about Trowa the circus performer."

"We're talking about the same person. We've met, and I call him uncle because it gets to his nerves. Speaking of him, does he like Miss Dorothy too? While I and Mr. Winner danced, he and my cousin were discussing something. It's not everyday I see him chatting animatedly with someone. In a social function like that especially, knowing how he disliked being around hoity-toity people."

"I wasn't aware they knew each other personally." Heero said curtly.

"Well, it's not impossible for uncle to be fond of her. Despite whatever the world says, I think my cousin's very likable."

She had expected him to readily disagree, but he didn't. "I guess, if Trowa really likes her. He's not one to grow fond of people that easily. As for Quatre, unlike the usual high society beefcakes and personalities in Dorothy's 'suitors' queue', I don't think he's drawn to her due to her being a business tycoon _and _a walking sex icon—that's what everyone with masculine eyes would say, why the shocked look? Relena considers Dorothy her best friend. Or sometimes, best 'frienemy', as they still squabble about a lot of things. You like her too?"

"Yes." She closed her eyes and tried to recapture the warmth of Dorothy's arms. "Not before she hugged me, though. Funny, but I think I'm feeling some kind of maternal affection for her."

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Mariemaia let her unfinished ice cream fall from her hands, then enveloped herself with her arms.

She stood up after a while. "I need to go back now," she announced, patting her skirt. "Thank you very much, Heero Yuy. I'm going to mark this day. My first date."

Heero opened his mouth to remind her that this still wasn't her first, but she beat him to it by placing a quick peck on his nose. She chuckled, threw him a yellow flower she had picked up from where shehad been seated, and then bolted, her flaming hair and pallid hand waving.

Heero picked up the yellow flower and thought of a little girl and her dog.

This time, he was happy.

* * *

"Haven't I humored you enough? Why on earth should there be a_ report_?"

The man on the other line lifted a brow, amused. "Because I say so. Why is it too hard for you to tell me how you enjoyed it? Don't think of it as a report, you're making it harder that way. Think of it as just a conversation between friends. Sharing, you know?"

"You're the last person I want to gossip with about boys, Mr. Barton."

Trowa flashed a one-sided smile. "I hope you don't forget that I'm holding the key to one of your _girly_ closets, Miss Catalonia. You wouldn't want Quatre to see the skeletons you keep there."

"You're getting awfully cliché," Dorothy said with a yawn. "I thought you're better than that."

Whether Trowa's surprised expression was genuine or not, Dorothy was uncertain.

"_That_ chummy?" he asked slowly, green eyes wide with some sort of mirth. "On the first date?"

Dorothy rolled her eyes, leaning tiredly against her chair. "That doesn't have anything to do with the clout of your blackmail on me weakening."

"That doesn't exactly answer my questions."

She heaved an exhausted sigh, letting go of a handful of her silvery strands she was playing with since the start of this conversation. It occurred to her that Trowa delights in letting her waspish personality surface over her feigned calmness, and in almost all their "chats" he had accomplished this. Not tonight though. Not when her night had gone very well.

And she wouldn't let him know how good it had been.

"Mr. Barton, I hope you're aware that it's past three in the morning here and I have to make up for the work I missed."

"It's just eight thirty in the evening here and I'm bored."

"So? I'm not one to keep clowns entertained. "

"You're amusing me right now."

"Says the Johnny-come-lately to the world of _my kind_ of conversations." She threw him a sleepy but condescending smile. "It's the other way around my dear. The way you sound so gauche entertains me to no end. And you look a bit….weird tonight. Bonus."

Her last statements were truer. There was something about Trowa tonight, despite the chipper mood he was making her see, that made her somewhat…worried. He looked as though he had swallowed something bitter by mistake but was trying hard not to show it. When she pointed it out, he couldn't even look straight into the monitor. It made her feel a tad awkward.

Trowa shrugged, attempting to fake nonchalance in vain. "If your kind of conversation is always like this, a string of too obvious red herrings, I don't want be involved in one again. That is, after—"

"Fine then," Dorothy interrupted with a chuckle. "Ta-ta, dear boy."

Trowa's glare was her prize for that and she leaned back to her chair, teasingly letting her fingers flutter on the 'end' conversation button.

"I don't want to engage in a conversation with you again after this one," Trowa continued, suddenly serious. "Let's get this over and done with."

"I don't believe you, somehow," she yawned. "Fine, let's get to the main point already. Do you really want us to discuss my date? Your face's saying something else."

Trowa shifted rather uncomfortably in his seat. She thought she could make out a raw blush under the curtain of his bangs, but she couldn't be sure.

"About Quatre," he began. "How does it feel?"

"What?"

A one-shouldered shrug. "How does it feel when you've realized you have something for Quatre?"

"What _something_?"

He looked annoyed. "I refuse to go back to square one again. _How does it feel_?"

"I don't know what you're saying. How about the date report?"

"The date report's just some sort of springboard—it's you who jumped into the water too soon, so here we are. Answer me straight so you can finally go to sleep."

Dorothy crossed and re-crossed her legs. She now regretted not humoring him from the beginning. She liked it when Trowa's in a good mood because it usually meant has someone who has an awful lot of patience to rub up the wrong way. She had to admit, too, that it felt good to have another person who knew her feelings for Quatre. He made no bones about her putting up of facades, even if he did tease her about her 'girlish' plight when he got perfect chance. Perfect chance in Trowa's vocabulary meant there's only him and Dorothy present.

Trowa raised an inquiring brow. "So?"

"I don't know," Dorothy sighed, suspicious. "Why don't you just tell me your problem?"

"I promise to tell after you answer me. How does it feel?"

Dorothy raised a brow. Trowa looked awfully troubled now, his face a nasty flushed pallor of nervousness. She could make out glitters of sweat on his temples.

"There's only one word that can describe my feelings for him, Trowa Barton."

"And that is?"

"Indescribable."

Trowa slumped tiredly on his seat. "For once, you're succeeding in peeving me just by a single word."

"I'm not peeving you. It's true."

"You're not helping, Dorothy."

She opened her mouth for a quick response, but the sound bite reached her ears and sank in, making her clamp her lips together again: did he just call her by her first name?

"I won't be of any real help if you won't tell me the problem, _Trowa_."

"I have to confirm if it's really a problem first, and your feelings for Quatre will be my basis for comparison."

Dorothy rubbed her temples, which began to throb quite painfully. Confirmation? Comparison? Nothing was making sense, and she threw Trowa a you're-making-me-want-to-strangle-you-for-confusing-me-you-numskull look. "I really need to sleep, Mr. Barton."

"Help me." Trowa's voice had quivered a little, and it shocked her. His face was contorted into a mass of pleading expression, and the way it appeared on the monitor made Dorothy want to make herself believe she was just dreaming.

"Help me," he repeated. "Just this afternoon…she's come. From the past. I just want to know if what I'm feeling is…real. Like yours."

Like hers?

"Explain to me everything."

* * *

"..well, there's this boy who said he has no name, and he met this girl who used a false name. No-name saved Fake-name's life, but for some reason Fake-name despised No-name. They parted, and when they met again, No-name has already taken somebody else's name and Fake-name was using her real name. Fake-name recognized No-name, but she wasn't sure he recognized her. They parted again, Fake-name thought it was for good, but soon they bumped into each other again—oh, yes, small world, small world—and No-name called her by her first fake name, and—"

"Brookie," Duo interrupted, raising his hand, "_Brookie_. Calm down, you're nearly hyperventilating. What's this balderdash all about?"

"No-name called her by her first fake name," Brooke continued as though she didn't hear him, absently thumbing the LCD of her camera. "Trowa Barton…Trowa Barton called me Midii Une, Duo."

"Midii Une?" Duo flashed an inquiring look. "Une?"

"At first, I didn't…" Brooke's mouth was dry. She shook her head and looked down at the LCD, where a shot of a half-astonished, half-confused face of Trowa was flashed. Her eyes fluttered close. "No-name recognized me."

* * *

Quatre swigged the last drops of water from his canteen and wiped the sweat that trickled down the bridge of his nose. He stared past the yellow rim of his helmet to the metallic pad of sky above, where his Play-Doh were flitting aimlessly, like misguided ghosts so lost they gave up all hopes of being guided back to the right path. He smiled and tried to 'mold' one cloud into a shape of a baby dinosaur. He failed, and then he laughed.

He let his eyes travel downward until they met the lovely bone structure of one of the civilian establishments they were rebuilding. Reconstruction at L3-X18999 was far from over; it would take longer than what Quatre (had) expected. Two of the Winner Corporation's rival resource mining companies—the Mallory Transcolonial and the Jenkins Steel—offered some help to speed up the operations, though it's blatantly just an act for the broadsheets and their own yellow press-style newspapers. It's a shame, really, for companies like them to even own such things. It was as well possible that they were trying to catch an angle for a story that would project a bad image for the Winner Corporation. That's how they work; they've done it in the past, though quite unsuccessfully. "If there's no news, make one," was the motto of the tabloids.

As if they could attach those sensationalist strings to make a marionette of public opinion! The people were smarter than that. Aren't they?

_Oh well,_ _motives don't alter facts_, Quatre thought with a wince. _Those companies may have done something to speed up the work_. He looked up again at his clouds to bring his good mood back.

"Master Quatre," a voice called from somewhere behind the sacks of cement nearby. It was Abdul. "How are we?"

"Peachy keen," Quatre responded with a grin that transformed into a contrite grimace when he remembered what he did the night before. "I'm sorry for leaving without telling you. The best thing I could do to make up to Dorothy after that little egg incident was to grant her request."

"It's alright," Abdul assured him, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. "I know it's no fun having a date with a couple of fez-capped old codgers lingering at your sides."

That statement made Quatre notice that there was something awkward with Abdul's demeanor today. He couldn't tell what exactly, but it's there. He squinted as if that something was visible. "You know, Dorothy actually looked ready to back out when she learned it's going to be a chaperoned date."

"She looked at us as if we had bull's-eyes on our shirts," Abdul laughed. "The fork looked frighteningly sharper in her hand. Ahmed said he's quite sure she'd fling it at us."

…still there. Quatre chuckled, with some effort, "If she got bored or irritated enough, maybe she would have."

Abdul didn't respond. He looked past Quatre, and the blond followed his gaze. They watched the busy figures dotting the straight arms of the building's cement skeleton, shouting orders, wiping perspiration off their brows.

For a short moment, Quatre forgot about Abdul's mysterious uneasiness. There was an ecstatic jerk that rocked his chest as he looked at the building. Even in its incomplete state, he could say it was far more beautiful than the grandest hotel or skyscraper he knew. It was a symbolism of their blood, sweat, and tears... They were all working on this, physically reconstructing their world and spiritually rebuilding the peace that they were slowly embracing now…

"She worked for it, too," he muttered to himself. "In her own way."

"Master?"

"Nothing," said Quatre, giving a little shake of his head, thinking that Abdul was querying about what he just whispered.

"I have something to ask you."

The blond cocked a brow, curiously examining the Maguanac's now expressionless face. "Shoot."

"You still a virgin?"

The moment's equation: a seconds-long silence and Abdul's utterly staid face, plus the sudden widening of Quatre's eyes, the slight hanging of his jaw, and the small folds between his eyebrows equals the boy's sheer disbelief at the question.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Are you a virgin, Master Quatre? Before you met Lady Dorothy?"

The previous equation raised to the second power.

Quatre swallowed hard before saying, "If you guys think I and Dorothy went to some love inn or something when we left last night, you're terribly mistaken."

"Master, it's not…_that_. You haven't answered my question."

"Of course I'm still a virgin! What made you ask that?" Wasn't it just, like, yesterday when they had told him he was the most innocent boy they've met?

Abdul looked a tad apologetic, meeting Quatre's eyes only once as he fished out something from his pocket. He handed the folded newspaper section to Quatre.

"This," Quatre announced after reading the story thrice, his voice incredulous, "is what you call pure sensationalism, Abdul."

"You mean the boy in the photo's not you? I knew it. I and Ahmed couldn't believe it when we saw this. Clever editing then—"

"It's me," he admitted with a small hint of embarrassment, "and it's Dorothy. But I'm certainly not the man in that news article!"

An uneasy pause. "We thought so, too, Master Quatre. Seriously…we don't think you'd sleep with half a dozen call girls in a night—bill them to your one of your sisters' Mastercard—and then join a Chastity Group the next day and deliver a speech about virginity—"

Quatre sighed and bit his lip, hard. "_If there's no news, make one_. That's always been it, their mantra. It's ridiculous."

Abdul nodded. "About the photograph…"

Quatre sighed yet again but didn't say another word, crumpling the paper and letting it fall to the ground. He never wanted to deal with this kind of people, and he never would—he swore that to himself, after seeing those pathetic attempts—cloaked in journalism—at destroying an adversary. Only now, the scandal involved someone else he cared for…and it would positively cause a domino reaction.

"I'm sure your PR department will be able to do something about it, Master Quatre… the Captain wasn't aware of this yet, only I and Ahmed, but he'll know sooner or later."

_This will pass_, Quatre thought. _It's something people wouldn't take seriously…_

He raised his eyes. The clouds were gone.

* * *

tbc


End file.
